Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today inaugurated the city government’s Art, Culture and Languages Department’s flagship cultural scheme to support artists — Street Theatre and Performing Arts Fellowship. “This is the first time that in our country such a unique scheme of cultural presentation of over 450 artists has been launched in Delhi. This will create a taste for art and culture among the people. There will be live art performances on the streets as we have created this fellowship to give an opportunity to artists to express themselves,” Sisodia said at the inaugural programme of the scheme. The fellowship has been instituted by the Sahitya Kala Parishad under the Department of Art, Culture and Languages, Government of Delhi, and the launch happened at the Delhi Secretariat. Altogether 500 artists from diverse backgrounds such as theatre, music, dance and fine arts have been selected for this fellowship with 500 more to be added to the list in the future. Sisodia said, “Artists from Delhi over the past few years have been asking me to promote street art in the city. They pointed out that though there are cultural hubs like Mandi House, we need to expand culture to all parts of the city to give a platform to street artists to showcase their art.” India has an extremely rich culture, he said. “We created this to give that opportunity to those who have talent in Delhi. Our government schools in Delhi remain vacant in the evening. We’ve decided to give these artists that space in the evenings to refine their talent, and where they are trained,” he said. Congratulating all the fellows and team members, the Deputy CM said, “We had envisioned this scheme a year ago, but it got sidelined because of the pandemic. Now we have decided that it is time to launch it. I’m happy that all formalities for the fellowship programme have been completed and now it will be before the public — taking art to the streets,” he informed. “The Delhi government is not only offering means of livelihood to artists but will also work as a facilitator to empower them. It will also serve as an opportunity for artists to perform in a creative way across the city. We want people to get used to art so that music, art and culture thrive in Delhi,” Sisodia added.

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