When I started in 2012 with the support of few artists and 20 friends, I never knew I was curating Indias only solo arts festival...MONOLOGUES started out as my love for solos and I am most grateful to my detractors who abandoned me on high-seas so that I could rough it out with some sailing support...2013 was different when Phreedom4ever and Chaity Ghosh( and Manas Ghosh who never fails to support my work unconditionally) took it over as a brand-property and lent it a national flavour...The team worked day in and out to keep up the standard and quality of work and 2014 was truly a success in terms of artistic expressions and forms that we could include in the fiesta...As I have mentioned before,we did have a few cheques from sponsors and patrons(nothing moves without finance) but I guess they were all on board because they believed in our concept..Here I would like to mention Debashish Sarkar specifically because he somewhat was a guiding light for creating a corporate oulook for the festival and Chaity led it with amazing gusto..Raj Banerjee as the strong and silent types never fails to surprise me by his unflinching support and what charm he spelled over the three days as the anchor of the festival...The media outreach of the festival would not have been possible without Subhojit Roy and Shyamashree Sen...I am extremely grateful to my friends in the media, regionally and nationally...Its not about what you write but I just felt that the media has been extremely careful in categorizing the festival with the right positioning.Nothing can happen without the harbingers of change and MONOLOGUES 2014 is thankful to all the members of M.A.D. for being an active partner in the project...Its your generation who has to lead the change in arts, where I stop to breathe or rest...There are few people who are like oxygen masks for me and there is a whole list but I have to name a few like Anjan Banerjee, Rubena Chatterjee, Reshmi Bose, Avishek De Biswas, Writu Bose, Sayan Bhador, Pritha Bhador, Dipayan Ganguly, Utsav Dan, Hemchhaya De, Sudarshan ChakravortyImran Zaki,Subha Pal, and many others..I would like to thank heartily my friends Nina Saxer, Marco Saxer Anil Mukherjee and Supreeta Singh for their support in terms of signature hospitality...Thank you Anuradha Sen, Tapan Sen, Kumkum MitraSaira Shah Halim, Indrava Dutt, Abeer Chakravarty and others for your hand-holding..Devdan Chaudhuri, you are the one who inspired THE SOLO ROOM and I am sure your first creation as an author shall be lapped up by the youth...I am extremely grateful to the fraternity of young artists in Kolkata who show up to create that vibrancy and enthusiasm when the wheels need a bit of refueling,...Thank you Zubair Alam for your time and clicks...An arts festival breathes because of artists and 2014 would be significant because of the assortment we had...Thank you Meeta Vasisht for that intoxicating kickstart through WEEKEND on a week-end..Soumya Mukherji, Kabir Chattopadhyay and Neel Adhikari take a bow for creating the much needed out-of-box flavour for youth segment..Anuvab Pal, you surely raised a storm in the cup like a true-blue bangali..Paramita Saha, you transcended your form to create a new language of dance-theatre in collaboration with some of the finest artists in the scene like Tarak Nath Das Tukai, Swarup Dutta, Mayukh Bhowmick and Chuti...And a thrilling final act by the legendary Usha Ganguly who created the crescendo of the festival...I am very thankful to Subrata Saha for the sound design...Thank you Subhrajyoti Basu for a mesmerizing light act on both days...I would like to crown this off by thanking GODREJ, AMW, ACTION CONSTRUCTION, RR MEDIA AND BIG 92.7FM....Finally, thank you all the artists of kolkata who turned up in numbers on all the three days to support arts and the festival...We are overwhelmed.... Statutory Warning: If I have missed anybodys name or reference, thats due to old age and fatigue...
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 08:44:35 +0000