Monday, February 15, 2010

Visages gathers talents in Indian cultures

The campus was agog with cultural extravaganza for two consecutive days on February 13 and 14 when over 30 colleges came to showcase their talents in the colourful festival ‘Visages’, the festival of cultures. There were 23 events that made up the mammoth festival.

Karnataka Sahitya Academy award winner and well-known literary critic, T.P Ashok inaugurated the event. He said, “Culture means different forms of life. It is a very large world and people have different ways of life, various food habits and culture. We can’t say certain cultures are superior or certain kinds of culture are inferior.”


Dr Farial Shaik, the cultural co-coordinator said, “Today St Joseph’s College has given the youth an opportunity to represent the different cultures of India, making this ‘Visages’ a cultural festival with a difference.”

The first day of ‘Visages’ saw twelve events and several ice breaker sessions, which kept the participants occupied. Dance drama, advertising campaign, western acoustics and laugh out loud were some of the most popular events of the day.



Dance drama called up good choreography skills, as the performers were supposed to tell a story through the art form of dance. The team from Jyothi Nivas College (JNC) won the competition with their excellent depiction of identity.

Advertising campaign challenged the performers to entertain and educate the audience about a particular social issue. Serious issues such as prostitution, plight of the differently abled, transgender issues etc. were enacted humorously and sensitively by the participants. St Joseph’s College won the event.


Western Acoustics was the name of the event, but participants performed a cappella versions of the western songs they chose. “Good old acoustics is any day better than a cappella, but sadly all the participants sang a cappella,” said Dr Berin Lukas the judge of the event. The girls from Mount Carmel College (MCC) won the event.

Laugh out loud was clearly the most popular event of the day which got the maximum cheers from the crowd. St John’s Medical College secured the first place and Oxford college of Science was the runner-up.

The second day of ‘Visages’ had eleven events, some of the popular ones being ‘Western Solo’, ‘Songs of India’, ‘Personality’ and ‘Dance of India’.

Western solo gave an opportunity to musically talented individuals to showcase their voice as well as their skill in an instrument of their choice. Steven from St John’s Medical College won the event. He sang Bob Deylon’s famous number ‘blowing in the wind’.

The group from SJC won the first place in ‘Songs of India’. They rendered a Manipuri song which received much cheer.

‘Personality’ event judged the participants on several criteria like ability to handle a crowd, pressure, etc. After three grueling sessions Mr Personality was awarded to Rahul from Vijaya College and Ms Personality to Alexandra from St John’s College of Nursing.

The final Event of visages was dance of India, where the participating groups were asked to depict through dance the culture of the country. Rural Karnatic folk dances, Tamil Nadu folk dances, ‘tapang’ (street dance), etc were some of the themes which participants performed.

“Visages was good as there were many new events which I never saw in other colleges. I also learnt new criteria of judging talent,” said Rosemary, one of the participants from St John’s College.

Xavier Prasad’s dance moves and the DJ Marshal and DJ Vivian’s clever selection of music was the perfect end to Visages.


- Sidharth Gokul, I MS Com

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