Performing Arts Festival

This article is about the cultural competition in India. For festivals focusing on the arts, see Arts festival.
H3-H6 PAF Dastak, introducing street play as a sub-drama in the PAF.

The Performing Arts Festival, abbreviated as PAF, is the biggest inter-hostel cultural competition in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay located at Powai in Mumbai (India).[1] The term PAF is used to refer not only to the festival itself, but also to the individual cultural performances that constitute the festival.

Both Undergraduate and Graduate students at IIT Bombay participate enthusiastically in the preparation and organization of the festival. Typically three or four hostels (out of fourteen) are grouped together by random draw for each PAF. Though technically a drama, each PAF comprises contributions from several of the cultural arts including dramatics, literature, music, fine arts, debating and dance. Since 1999, the PAF has been held at the Open Air Theater (OAT) inside the Students' Activity Center (SAC), within the main campus of IIT Bombay. Typically, all dialogues at PAF are delivered using voice overs and not by the actors themselves, mainly owing to the huge size and structure of the OAT. This requires a great deal of co-ordination between the actors and the voice actors.

Prod

A scene from Déja Vu by Hostels 4, 9, 1 and 11 on 28 March 2006

The major work of a PAF is the preparation of the sets by fellow students. It is commonly called prod or prodwork , dialectic abbreviations for productions, . Prod consists of making huge sets using bamboo, jute rope and screens made with layers of newspaper glued together by freshmen and seniors in co-operation. Structures strong enough to hold the weight of more than two or three people have been prepared time and again. In the PAF of 2007, for instance, a two storeyed set was made in order to give the dramatists a chance to perform at an elevated level.

Production sets requires maximum amount of man hours to put them in place. Building of production sets (usually from bamboo) starts about a month before the PAF. The teams are allowed 3 days to install the sets and perform the finishing touches in the Open Air Theater.

Theme and language

PAFs can be made in Hindi or English. Themes chosen are usually serious and have been drawn from history, science fiction, social injustice, biographies etc. The only caveat is that the scripts are expected to be original.

Some recent PAFs

The PAF season is very interesting period in campus life at IIT Bombay during the last fortnight of March and the first week of April each year, officially culminating all the extracurricular activities of IIT Bombay for that academic year. Some recent PAFs include:

Interesting to note that H10 hasn't won PAF since 1997 and H7 hasn't won since 2001. Also 2002 was the last time when the team performing first won the PAF.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://placements.iitb.ac.in/training/new/why_recruit.development.html

External links