In an attempt to preserve the rich artistic traditions of Uttar Pradesh, encourage artists belonging to different genres of art to pursue their art, and discover emerging talents, the Yogi Adityanath government is organizing ‘Sanskriti Utsav 2023’ from December 25 to January 26, 2024.

The festival will begin with competitions among artists at the village, panchayat, block, and tehsil levels. The closing ceremony will take place in Lucknow from January 24 to 26, 2024 on the occasion of Uttar Pradesh Day. winners will be honoured with medals, certificates, and mementoes,  officials here on Thursday said.

The objective of this event is to familiarize people with various forms of classical, semi-classical, folk music, and folk dance along with discovering the talents of Uttar Pradesh and providing them a platform to showcase their skills to people.

In addition, along with preserving and promoting the rich tradition of folk music, the festival also seeks to identify classical and folk artists in different parts of the state as well as give them a platform for exhibiting their talents.

According to the proposed schedule of the Sanakriti Utsav 2023, competitions for artists at the village, panchayat, block, and tehsil levels will be organized from December 25 to December 30, 2023. Similarly, from January 1 to January 5, 2024, competitions for selected artists at the tehsil level will be organized at the district headquarters.

From January 10 to January 15, 2024, there will be a competition at the district level among the selected artists in the district headquarters while from January 20 to January 21, 2024, there will be a competition among selected artists at the divisional level in Lucknow.

On January 23, 2024, the winners of the competition held in Lucknow will undergo a pre-training session for participation in the Uttar Pradesh Day while from January 24 to January 26, 2024, presentations, honours, and awards ceremonies will be organized for all selected participants on the occasion of the Uttar Pradesh Day.

At the village, panchayat, block, and tehsil levels contests, the Tehsildar will be responsible while the competitions among selected artists at the tehsil, district and divisional levels will be overseen by the Sub District Magistrate, the Chief Development Officer and the Additional Commissioner, respectively.

The government has issued guidelines regarding the festival. The government has instructed officials to prepare a portal for the smooth registration of artists. It has also called for providing the option of offline and on-the-spot registration for interested individuals coming late. Besides, the portal will also serve as a platform to provide immediate and effective redressal of the problems of the participants as well as make the participants aware of the prescribed terms and conditions and ensure participation at the block and district level.

In addition, information about distinguished individuals participating in the competitions, categorized by region, category, competitions, and events, must be provided in the daily bulletin, the government has directed.

The allotted time for solo singing is 5+1 minutes, for group singing it is 5-8 minutes, for solo dance 5+1 minutes (recorded music not allowed), for group dance 5-8 minutes (recorded music not allowed), for solo instrumental performance 5+1 minutes, and for group instrumental performance 6-10 minutes.

All participants must be residents of Uttar Pradesh for which the participants’ Aadhar cards will be considered as proof. Participants can take part in the competition at the venues of their respective districts only if they are residents of the particular district. A participant can participate in only one category. All artists will have to make their arrangements for accompaniment artists and musical instruments.

Presentations in patriotic songs, folk songs, folk dances, tribal dances, and folk instruments will be allowed only in groups. In all other categories, only solo presentations will be allowed. In addition to their solo presentation, all participating artists can also take part in only one group presentation. Accompaniments to artists can collaborate with more than one group but the leader of a group collaborating with the proposed categories will not be allowed to participate in any other presentation.

In classical dance and folk dance, attire related to that category is mandatory. Group presentations must also have a common attire. Presentations that may hurt the sentiments of any political party, religion, sect, caste or individual will be strictly prohibited.