An extensive and diverse cultural program from January to August, as a prelude to the fiftieth edition of the Cervantino International Festival (FIC), was announced this Thursday by the director of the State Institute of Culture of Guanajuato, Adriana Camarena de Obeso, in a joint conference, accompanied by Mariana Aymerich, General Director of the FIC; the director of the branch in Mexico of the Cultural Center of India Gurudev Tagore, Shrimati Das; and Luis Felipe Bravo Mena, representative of the state government in Mexico City.
The cultural days “Rumbo al Cervantino 50”, in which some countries will take part that for half a century have been special guests at the great event of the arts in Mexico, known as the “Fiesta del spirit”, will be inaugurated on 28 to next January 30 with the presence of India in the city of Guanajuato.
The conference “Rumbo al Cervantino 50” will be to “warm up engines for the great party” that historically is celebrated in the month of October, and that this year has Korea and Mexico City as guests, said Adriana Camarena de Obeso.
During the presentation, via Zoom, Adriana Camarena and Shrimati Das detailed that there will be a total of 29 activities that the guest country will offer on this first day, from plastic exhibitions, dance, theater, cinema, music, gastronomy, to yoga classes, and they will be based in three cities of the state: Guanajuato, León and Salamanca.
The program highlights the seminar “Paz and Tagore: Two great figures of thought and creativity”, dedicated to the Nobel Prize for Literature of both nations, Rabindranath Tagore (1913) and Octavio Paz (1990), who was also ambassador of Mexico in India between 1962 and 1968.
With regard to the above, after thanking the invitation on behalf of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Shrimati Das pointed out that it is significant that his country’s participation in the festivities prior to the Cervantino coincides this year with the 75th anniversary of the Independence of India and recalled that just in 2020 70 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations between his nation and Mexico were commemorated.
The cultural agenda will formally open on Friday the 28th with three exhibitions at the Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato: Stree Drishti. Women Recorders of India; Lok Main Ram. The God Rama among the people, a pictorial collective on the most revered deity of India from the Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi and Six yards of grace, shows dedicated to the sari, the most traditional garment in India.
That same day, the macro yoga classes will begin, which Chintapalli Syamala Prasad, a teacher with more than 25 years of experience and who has shared his knowledge in India, Bangladesh, Fiji Islands and Mexico, will teach on the Esplanade of the Alhóndiga. A three-day gastronomic and craft show will also start, which will take place in the Plaza del Baratillo.
Another culinary highlight will be offered at the Flavors Symphony dinner, in which the talents of chefs from Mexico and India will be combined to delight diners at La Virgen de la Cueva and the Quinta Las Acacias hotel restaurant.
In the field of the seventh art, nine titles will be screened, subtitled in Spanish, made in the first decade of the 21st century and that show recurrent elements in Bollywood productions, such as romance and musical numbers with colorful choreography, among them: Lagaan, Ashutosh Gowariker; Mohabbatein by Aditya Chopra and The Good Name by Mira Nair.
The final day of India in Guanajuato includes a commemorative act for the 74th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, which is celebrated on January 30; which will take place in the Reforma Garden, which since 2018 houses a bust of the Indian hero.
Among the countries that are included in the “Rumbo al Cervantino 50” program, are Uruguay, China, France, Russia, Poland, the United Kingdom and Colombia, confirmed the director of the State Institute of Culture, Adriana Camarena de Obeso.
Finally, Mariana Aymerich, general director of the FIC, celebrated the initiative to “warm up the streets and stages” of Guanajuato towards the Cervantino50 with the “vast, complete and multidisciplinary presence of India”, and announced that it is “throwing all the deck on the table” with the hope that sanitary conditions allow a complete face-to-face and virtual celebration and without cancellations.
Meanwhile, the cultural days towards the Cervantino International Festival will continue to observe sanitary measures and the capacity in closed spaces will have a limit of 70%, the organizers indicated.
francisco.deanda@eleconomista.mx