National Seminar on Oral Culture : People, Poetics and Performances, Shillong Back

The North-Eastern Hill University in collaboration with the INTACH, the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manv Sanghrahalya, Bhopal and the Indian Council of Social Science Research, NERC, Shillong conducted a National Seminar on the them – ‘Oral Culture: People, Poetics and Performances’ on 22nd to 23rd August 2017 in Meghalaya.
The seminar was inaugurated by the Chief Guest Prof. David R Syiemlieh. Chairman, UPSC Dr. Temsula Ao delivered the keynote address stressing on the significance of transmitting oral culture, language as a vehicle for communication, and performances as the basic structure of ‘orality’. She mentioned the linkage between memory and oral culture, and the need to recognise the wisdom of indigenous knowledge and cultures.
There were a total of 43 paper presentation from researchers and scholars from various universities and institutes across the country. There were eight technical sessions during the Conference on the following themes :
Verbalisation and Performances
City Carnivalesque : Heroes, Heroines and Hierarchies
Folk to Classical: Liminality in/of Performances
Authorship and Authority of Oral Cultures
Oral Tradition and Gender
Vernacular Poetics
‘De-Shrined’ Worship: Dance, Drama and Music
Tradition-oriented Communication : Episteme and Praxis
The first day of the Seminar was celebrated as World Folklore Day with a cultural programme and a themed costume competition organised at the venue. Padmashree Haldhar Nag gave a recitation of a few of his Oriya poems during one of the sessions. The Seminar concluded with a valedictory session.