Celebrating Life 2015 District Festivals: Afterthoughts

I guess the most apt way of describing this year's Celebrating Life's districts festivals would be Unexpected or Unanticipated. What we mean by that is that we were simply unprepared for the amount of love that people all over the country and of all ages have for our country's rich culture and also of Celebrating Life. Even when we thought we might not get that big of a crowd, we were badly mistaken, as every venue in every district would be packed beyond maximum capacity, with the crowds going wild with performances from various popular artists of the country. Armed with this knowledge and confidence, we will now target even bigger audience numbers and bring performance from even more renowned artists to make Celebrating Life the best it can be.

Arnob's performance in Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET) was the one that caused quite a bit of confusion for us. We are of course aware of Arnob's vast popularity here, but over there, we had our doubts. However, those doubts were put to rest as we were constantly hounded by the students for information and confirmation of whether Arnob would really play there. When his performance started, all hell broke loose. The entire university field was literally swamped with so much people that you wouldn't be able fit a sheet of paper in between them! Arnob himself was also very happy with the turnout and he kept on insisting on stage that had he known about Celebrating Life's events before, he would have participated a long time ago and promises to be an active part of it in the future.

Lalon's performance in Dinajpur Hajee Danesh University and Joler Gaan's performance in Barisal's B.M. College was another surprise for us. We didn't really expect a huge crowd for these events as well as both catered to a more exclusive taste, which might not be much enjoyable for all, especially Joler Gaan, whose performances are mostly considered sophisticated. Boy, were we wrong! As a precaution, we took a small corner of a big venue, expecting low turnout, but that was proven completely untrue as it took no time at all to fill up the entire venue and go beyond maximum capacity.

An interesting question was raised during our Chittagong Theatre Institute event; would people be able to handle a grownup performance by Rezwana Choudhury Bannya as well as a youthful band performance by Teerondaz? Much to our relief, we found that answer to be a unanimous yes. The society in general seems to underestimate people's tolerances and this performance proves that this line of thinking is just wrong.

Chondona Mazumder's performance in Rajshahi University was a bit lucky for us in terms of preparations. We were originally scheduled to hold the event in the University's auditorium, with a crowd capacity of 3000. While that was fine, we simply fell in love with their courtyard and decided at the last moment to switch the stage, much to the dismay of the faculty there who were concerned we may not be able to fill up the capacity. Turns out they were wrong, as the performance soon drew massive crowds left, right and centre.

Last, but certainly not least, were performances by Chirkutt at Comilla Victoria College and Sylhet's Shahjalal University of Science & Technology, and a dance drama presentation by Shadhona at Jahangirnagar University. We had gone through their performances in previous write-ups, so let's just get down to straight to the fact; they were simply magnificent.

By Intisab Shahriyar