63 teams registered for Folk Arts Festival

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University will conduct the first-ever Central Folk Arts Festival on January 11 and 12.

Director of the Student Development Board, Dr Kailas Ambhure, said that 63 teams from colleges across four districts registered for the festival.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Vijay Fulari announced the organisation of a separate folk arts festival during last year's youth festival. As per the announcement, folk arts were excluded from this year's Central Youth Festival, which was hosted from September 27 to 29. Nearly 263 teams out of 487 colleges participated in it.

The Central Folk Arts Festival will be organised on January 11 and 12 on the university campus. Participation of colleges in this festival is voluntary. The colleges registered online for the 11 art forms between December 10 and 20. Teams will showcase the arts of Maharashtra at the Folk Arts festival.

A total of 63 teams from four districts have registered for this festival. Of these, 61 colleges and one team each from the university and its sub-campus will participate, making a total of 63 teams.

The district-wise number of teams is as follows: Beed (12), Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (39), Dharashiv (four) and Jalna (eight).

A total of 377 student artists will participate in this festival across 11 art forms. Of these, 175 are boys and 202 are girls. The participation of girls is approximately 54 per cent.

Additionally, 162 teachers will be appointed as cultural coordinators and team managers, including 113 men and 49 women. The best team in the Folk Art Festival will be honoured with the Dr Sanjay Manikrao Navale Memorial Rolling Trophy, sponsored by Dr Arvind Navale.

The 11 Folk Art contests are Powada, Gondhal, Bhajan, Bharud, Lavani, Folk Songs, Folk Drama, Vasudev, Qawwali, Jalsa, and Poetry. Poetry recitation and Vasudev are individual categories, while the rest are group performances.