Inspired by tribal ways

Disha — Tribal Beats, the annual inter-collegiate festival of Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College was held in the City recently. Over 11 colleges including St Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Jyoti Nivas College, BMS College of Engineering and Vijaya College, took part in this festival, which was a day-long affair. The festival was coordinated by Shilpi Choudhary, Head of the Department of History and Shantha Solomon, Head of the Department of English.

While the off stage events were pencil sketching, creative writing, Western acoustics, collage, vernacular singing and 60 seconds to fame; the on stage events consisted of Indian dance, Western dance, mad ads and fashion show. The fashion show titled Vastrashastra was the highlight of the event.
With the theme being tribal, six colleges took part in the fashion show including the host college, BCWCC itself. The event saw many celebrities from the Kannada film industry — Pooja Gandhi, Sri Murali and Shubha Punja. The fashion show of BCWCC was choreographed by Shilpi Choudhary and was inspired by the Saura wall art, Lambanis of Karnataka, Todas of Nilgiris and Pipli from Orissa. As the show progressed, traditional Lambani women joined the students on stage and walked the ramp. The evening ended with Dayananda Sagar College walking away as the winner of the fashion show and Indian Academy being the runner-up. St George’s College emerged as the over-all winner of the festival.

The added attractions of the festival were 35 stalls exhibiting various products reflecting the rich culture of India, like kalamkari, jute, Kashmiri embroidery, terracotta, Nepali silver and bronze wear to name a few. “The main theme of the festival was women empowerment, along with tribal art,” said Dr Kavita Jaykaran, Home Science lecturer, who was also one of the organisers of the fest.
Said Lily, the general secretary of the college, “We started preparing for this festival from November. It used to be a two-day festival but now it’s become one day. However, the turnout of the festival was very good.”
DHNS