 | Cairo — Megastar Amitabh Bachchan will visit Egypt at the end of this month as the guest of honor at this year’s edition of the “India by the Nile” festival, the Indian embassy here has said.
Bachchan will speak about his films, particularly “Amar Akbar Anthony,” at the Opera House Mar. 31 and will also be present at a gala event at the Pyramids the same day, Indian ambassador to Egypt Navdeep Suri said Mar. 12
The gala inauguration will be followed by a new musical, “Bollywood Extravaganza: A Tale of Passion, Love and Revenge,” which will run at the Opera House from April 1-3 and will see more than 35 Indian dancers performing to the much-loved music of Indian cinema, he said.
The musical will also travel to Egypt’s second largest city of Alexandria, in the north central part of the country.
As part of the festival, a Bollywood dance workshop will also be organized Mar. 30 at Medan Theater in the Cairo Opera House complex.
The third edition of the festival, running from Mar. 28 to April 17, is organized by the embassy of India in Cairo in cooperation with the ministry of culture, the ministry of tourism, and the Cairo Opera House.
For the last two years, the festival, a celebration of contemporary and classical music, dance, theater, visual art, film, food and literature, has been billed as the biggest foreign fete in Egypt since the Jan. 25 revolution.
The range and variety of India’s diverse cultural ethos will be on display, the ambassador said, adding that a dance group from the northeastern state of Manipur will showcase the folk traditions of the region during the three-week festival.
Popular band Advaita will perform fusion music, combining the classical traditions of Indian music with rock in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Ismailia.
In a fresh take on a traditional field, this year’s Indian cuisine will feature street food which will be available at all event venues, Suri said. | | |