Theatre to photography and dance to poetry — students of 20 colleges busy at Ibtida, a three-day festival hosted by Jadavpur University’s activity clubs and societies from February 22. ‘The first three editions since 2018 only had drama, dance, music and fashion show. This year, we have incorporated more clubs and expanded the number of events to over 19, including film-making, poetry slam, creative writing, photography and more. The idea is to provide college students a platform to showcase their talents,’ said Junipa Sen, convener of Ibtida
All photographs by Arijit Sen / My Kolkata
The street play saw several performances based on the topic – Bangladesh Bhasha Andolan. Arjya Bhattacharya, first-year, department of English, Jadavpur University, said, “Our 11-minute street play in Bangla was based on the league movement of Bangladesh. We prepared the play in three to four days from scratch.’’
The Eastern Dance competition saw students from around 15 institutes like St. Xavier’s University, Lady Brabourne College, Rabindra Bharati University and others perform. ‘Our eight-member team depicted the life of a queer person through dance. We mostly chose Rabindrasangeet for our performance,’ said Swarnavo Mohanta, first year, department of Mass Communications, St. Xavier’s University
The wall painting competition gave budding artists a platform to showcase their talent and perspectives through art. Swagoto Mukherjee, third- year, department of Chemistry, the Bhawanipur Education Society College, said, ‘We have tried to project our art on people and culture. We’ve tried to portray the silver lining at the darkest hour. We have tried to establish the fact that art and humans complement each other.’
Ibtida gave a platform to budding entrepreneurs to showcase their talents at a pop-up exhibition-cum sale. From handmade jewellery to food, from hand-drawn illustrations to clothes; one could find them all here. Notable local brands like Nayaabb and Love, Lilo could be spotted among 20 to 25 stalls on the university campus
