Background
Bengali Performing Arts is a registered Charity - SC 035584
Address for Correspondence:
4 Waterside Drive, Newton Mearns, Glasgow G77 6TL.
Tel: 0141 - 639 7992
Email: nirmaldhar@hotmail.com
Brief Background Information:
Bengali Performing Arts was established in March 1992 with the concept of promoting all aspects of Bengali culture and social cohesion by organising year-round quality programmes with celebrity artistes and to maintain links, support and partnership with other voluntary and local community organisations. We also organise events with local amateur groups so that the local artistes can also have the opportunity to develop their skills to perform. This is not only enhancing the city's cultural image but also promoting an appreciation and understanding of different cultures. Bengali Performing Arts has been recognised by the Inland Revenue as a Scottish charity with effect from 23 rd May 2004 and is governed by its constitution. The registered charity number is SC035584.
Since 1992, Bengali Performing Arts has succeeded to enrich the social and cultural life of the people of our community by presenting a number of year-round shows/workshops with a number of top calibre celebrity artistes of ethnic minority background. Most of these artistes have been brought from Bangladesh and Indian State of West Bengal, and they have successfully presented some of their best performance in vocal songs, dances, music, poetry and story. We have also organised day-long events to celebrate separately Millennium Festival and the Landmark Year 2000. In the recent past we have successfully presented eleven high quality Bengali Drama shows on 21/02/98, 21/11/98, 20/11/99, 23/09/00, 09/03/01, 09/02/02, 15/03/03, 19/03/05, 25/06/05, 11/03/06 and 11/11/06 All of these shows being played by our local artistes except the Multi Cultural Drama Festival organised on 25/06/05 was performed by the local artistes and the artistes from India, Bangladesh and England. The main attraction of the drama festival held on 25/06/05 was Soumitra Chatterjee, a living legend of Bengali films and drama. Joining him were the popular performers Shahiduzzaman Selim and Rosey Siddique from Bangladesh. We feel proud of taking this initiative of promoting a new work. The innovation has proved highly successful and we hope to make it an annual feature of our cultural menu. This work has offered unique opportunity to our young amateur group to develop their cultural skills. These programmes are currently being enjoyed by the people of Bengali origin in Glasgow as well as in other parts of Scotland. It goes without saying that in the absence of these programmes our community would have been greatly deprived of enjoying their culture and viewing these celebrity artistes from India and Bangladesh. Our work also offers opportunities specifically to young unemployed people a means of gaining experience and skills through being involved in voluntary action with us.
In the light of growing number of elderly, retired and unemployed people within our two scattered Bengali speaking (Indian and Bangladeshi) communities we have agreed at the AGM held on 19 May 2002 to organise year-round social and recreational programmes to tackle our members' isolation/loneliness. In view of this we have organised year-round Indian film shows in collaboration with Glasgow Film Theatre, 2 Rose Street, Glasgow G3 from summer 2002. This activity is not only enhancing our social cohesion by bringing people together but also tackling individual member's isolation within our two scattered communities of former Strathclyde Region. Bengali Performing Arts also helps unemployed members of our community to get jobs and in the recent past three members of our community have succeeded to get jobs with our help. We believe these social and recreational activities will undoubtedly be beneficial to our community by enhancing the quality of people's social life of our isolated elderly members.
We firmly believe that through our year-round programmes, we help not only to enhance our social cohesion and tackle individual isolation by bringing people together but also to facilitate the creation of a true multi-cultural society in our world-class multi-racial Scotland. We are a not-for-profit charitable organisation and on behalf of Bengali Performing Arts everyone of us is now working on a voluntary basis to tackle our community problems. Bengali Performing Arts is a member of "Voluntary Action", an umbrella group based in 2 Bumfield Road, Giffhock, G46 7QP. All our events are public, barrier free and open to all. The committee of Bengali Performing Arts is totally committed to and operates on the principle of Equal Opportunities for all irrespective of colour, race, sex, ethnic or national origin, age, marital status, religion and disability. This means that in our activities no individual receives less favourable treatment, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements.
In addition, we have also, with the support of "Awards for All", organised a cultural outing for two days to attend and contribute to the 8th United Kingdom Banga Sanskritik Sammelan, an annual cultural conference of music, dance, drama, speech and storytelling, held on 19th and 20th April 2003 at its usual venue - Kirkby Sports Centre, Valley Road, Liverpool 32. During the conference we were highly appreciated by the audience and the organisers equally for the spectacular performance of our members in our dance drama and other contribution. The outings were undoubtedly very successful as well as helpful to bring people of our two scattered communities together. Further, to enhance our social cohesion and to tackle our individual member's isolation, we also organised a contributory holiday in October 2004 to Albufeira in Portugal. So far our activities have been supported by former Strathclyde Regional Council, Scottish Arts Council, Glasgow City Council, East Renfrewshire Council, Awards for All and the former Unemployed Voluntary Action Fund.
Since 1992 we have, so far, successfully organised a number of spectacular cultural shows. In our effort to tackle individual isolation and social cohesion within the community, in 2004 we organised a highly subsidised social and recreational outing for three days (26th -28th June 2004) to the Scottish Highlands with the support of "Awards for All". It was undoubtedly a very successful social and recreational outing. Everyone in the group was feeling himself/herself like a member of one family together during the three most enjoyable days of social outing. We firmly believe that through our programmes we will, hopefully, be able to achieve not only social cohesion by bringing people of our two scattered communities together but also improvement in the quality of social life of the people who share a common interest in Bengali Performing Arts. On the 25th of Feburary 2005, we organised a special dinner dance to raise funds for the vicitms of the Tsunami disaster. In this event we succesfully raised a total sum of £3840.70. The actual fund available for the Tsunami victims was £2164.27.
Our year round shows are usually held at 2/3 month's intervals. For further information please contact Dr. Nirmal Dhar, Tel. 0141 - 639 7992.
The most important feature, which also needs to be mentioned, is that as high as 90% of the people who come out to enjoy our programmes would not have come to enjoy had there not been the shows/events/outing which we have been organising since 1992. Now these people have become our regular audience/participants and eagerly look forward to our events to take place. This is undoubtedly a major transformation in the social life of these people in greater Glasgow as well as in other parts of Scotland. The other benefits include our ability to raise general awareness of the Bengali culture and we support people from all cultures to celebrate cultural diversity. This in turn advances people's education through getting a better understanding of their own culture and sharing this with others.
