Ten things that make Kerala State School Arts Fete Asia's best!
- The 57th Kerala School Kalolsavam will begin on Monday.
- The organisers have decided to adhere to green protocol, and disposable glasses and plates will have no place in the festival.
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Touted as Asia's biggest annual cultural gathering of school children, Kerala State School Kalolsavam, art festival of children, is special in many ways. Started in 1957, the festival gradually gained prominence as a major cultural event and entered the tourism calendar as well.
Apart from the government's generous support, the grand festival also gets great public support. Kannur, the land of looms and lores, is hosting the festival this year, which will begin with an extravagant procession on Monday and the town will keep awake late into the night for a week that will see thousands of little artists displaying their talents on stage. The literary festival, held as part of the annual cultural gathering, will see hundreds of students competing to prove their writing skills.
- Into its 57th edition, the festival will see nearly 12,000 school students contesting in 232 categories from classical art form Kathakali to rare folk art forms. The programmes will be held at 20 venues simultaneously.
- The inception of a state-level school youth festival was in 1956 when CS Venkiteswaran, who was the Director of Education then, floated the idea of holding such an event. He was inspired by the inter-university youth festival held in New Delhi. The first Kerala State School Youth Festival was held at Ernakulam in January 1957.
- The first state festival had contests in 13 categories, and the number of participants was just 400. Now, the festival holds contests in 232 categories, and 12,000 artists participates in the contests.
- The district that scores the highest point in the festival is presented a trophy made of 117.5 sovereigns of gold.
- All participants, teachers, officials and guests will be served sumptuous food prepared at the grand kitchen. Besides breakfast, lunch, supper, snacks and tea will also be served free for all. As many as 3,000 people can have food at the huge 50,000 sq.feet 'Oottupura' or dining hall at a time.
- The organisers have decided to adhere to green protocol, and disposable glasses and plates will have no place in the festival. A squad of 140 students will see to it that the protocol is strictly followed.
- As many as 5,000 students will participate in the grand cultural procession announcing the opening of the festival.
- The organisers have decided to include magic, Mangalam Kali (a tribal performing art) and Pulluvan Pattu, a folk music form.
- Until 2005, the highest scoring individual male and female artist used to be crowned as Kalaprathibha and Kalathilakam. But the practice was abolished after it led to an unhealthy competition among participants.
- The Kalolsavam has contributed many stars to Mollywood, including Manju Warrier, Dileep and Navya Nair, to name a few.
