DUBAI // Utsavam 2008 will bring more than 40 hours of traditional dance and art from the Indian region of Kerala, beginning today.
Thiranottam, a non-profit group based in Dubai, is organiser for the festival, which art lovers said was a huge success last year.
The organisers said one of the highlights this year would be a performance of the ancient Kathakali, a dance-drama routine in which the performer, painted in bright colours and dressed in flowing costumes, uses hand-eye gestures and dance to tell the story. Other performances in the festival would include Thayampaka, an ensemble of drummers; beginners' lectures on Kathakali; and Chakyaar Koothu, probably the forerunner of stand-up comedy, with a revered form of storytelling laced with humour.
Legendary performers including Padmabhushan Kalamandalam Ramankutti Nair, Kalamandalam Gopi, Sadanam Krishnan Kutty, Kalanilayam Unnikrishnan, Ammannoor Kuttan Chakkyaar and 16 other artists will unite for the first time in Dubai. "It will be a rare opportunity to enjoy the Kerala arts in their truest form performed by legends in their respective fields," organisers said in a written statement.
The festival will start at 11am. Venu Rajamony, consul general of India, will preside over the opening ceremony with K Mohandas, chief secretary to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
The performances will be held at the Dubai Indian Consulate hall.
pmenon@thenational.ae
The specs
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ACL Elite (West) - fixtures
Monday, Sept 30
Al Sadd v Esteghlal (8pm)
Persepolis v Pakhtakor (8pm)
Al Wasl v Al Ahli (8pm)
Al Nassr v Al Rayyan (10pm)
Tuesday, Oct 1
Al Hilal v Al Shorta (10pm)
Al Gharafa v Al Ain (10pm)
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
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