Lavani dancer Kanchi Shinde will be performing at the event
Pune: The 32 nd Pune Navratri Mahotsav is set to kick-start Navaratra celebrations in the city with cultural performances and many more from Oct 11 to 20. Organised under the leadership of president and former deputy mayor Aba Bagul, one of the festival’s major attractions will be the Lavani Mahotsav on Oct 18. It is scheduled to run for 12 hours, from noon to midnight.
Featuring performers including Roshni Mumbaikar, Vrushali Satpute and Poonam Kudalkar, the event will foreground Maharashtra’s folk performance tradition. The inaugural programme will also include a Bharatanatyam presentation, ‘Shiv Shakti’, by the Arundhati Patwardhan Group and a performance depicting the Khandoba-Banu wedding. State industries and Marathi language minister Uday Samant will inaugurate the festival. Music lovers can look forward to evenings dedicated to composers SD Burman, RD Burman, Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar . Other programmes will feature Bollywood hits across generations, a tribute to composers Shrinivas Khale and Yashwant Deo, and a musical journey through songs picturised on Hindi cinema’s leading actors.
The festival will open at 5pm on Sunday at Ganesh Kala Krida Rangmanch with ‘Maharashtra’s Great Heroines’, featuring cine artistes Bhargavi Chirmule, Vaishali Jadhav, Saniya Chaudhary and others.