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Aabaha Art and Theater Festival held in Georgia
AATF featured multilingual and multicultural performances, art exhibitions, and community dialogue.
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Staff Reporter - Tue, 09, Sep 2025
- 02:47 EDT
- 31
Organized by Aabaha, the festival seeks to be a center for culture and storytelling. / Courtesy photo: Aabaha
The Aabaha Art and Theater Festival (AATF) 2025 was organized from Aug. 22 to 24 in Sugar Hill, Georgia.
The three-day festival, organized by Aabaha, witnessed theater groups from Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas and New Jersey unite under one roof, presenting performances in Hindi, Bengali and English.
AATF acts as a center for culture and storytelling, emphasizing diversity through multilingual and multicultural performances, art exhibitions, and community dialogue.
Founder of Aabaha Inc, Kallol Nandi described the festival as "more than a showcase".
He added, "It is a dialogue between traditions, a meeting ground for generations, and a celebration of immigrant voices finding a home on American soil.”
The festival's inauguration day witnessed attendance from Nishi Arora, Consul for Education & Culture, from the Indian Consulate in Atlanta and also Sugar Hill Mayor Brandon Hill. The Mayor praised the festival’s ability to bring diverse cultures to life in the city, reinforcing Aabaha’s growing cultural influence.
Over the three days, the festival featured several performances, including, Cold Continues by Dhoop Chaoon from Atlanta and Across The Bridge by DFW Play from Dallas. Each performance was paired with an interactive session, which allowed the audience to engage directly with the artists.
The Aabaha Samman Award was presented to Dr. Sudipta Bhawmik, during the festival. AATF sought to honor Bhawmik's contributions to Bengali and Indian American theater.
Expressing his delight at all the performances he witnessed at the festival, he said, "I was thrilled to attend the Aabaha Art and Theatre Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. It was incredible to see so many theatre groups from all over the country come together to perform. Our group, ECTA, was there with our production of ‘Shikhandi,’ and the overall quality of the festival was outstanding."
He further said, "Some of the most memorable ones for me included ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ from Aabaha, ‘Gotroheen’ from DFW Play of Dallas, and ‘Subhodrishti’ from ENAD Boston. I was also incredibly honored to receive the Aabaha Samman 2025 Award."
The festival also featured an art exhibition, highlighting paintings, sculptures, and crafts by local community artists. A curated poster exhibition honored the legacies of Indian theater stalwarts Badal Sarkar, Tripti Mitra, and Mohan Rakesh, while a literary segment introduced Kancha Kobitar Boi, a new poetry collection by Ankan Basu.
Mridul Paul from Georgia, one of the attendees of the festival congratulated Aabha and said, “Thanks to Aabaha Inc. for another wonderful Natok festival. I especially enjoyed ‘Meghe Dhaka Tara’ — excellent direction, great performances, and a thoughtful touch with the English subtitles. For seniors like me, and for non-Bengali audiences, that feature was truly helpful and much appreciated.”
Another attendee, Suman Halder from Atlanta, exclaimed, “What wonderful plays. I felt like gifts which enrich the mindset and awareness. Congratulations and thank you to organizers and participants.”
“What makes Aabaha unique is its holistic approach,” explained Pranjal Karmakar, festival co-organizer. “It’s not just plays. It’s discussion, art, books, history. It's community.”
Founded in 2019, Aabaha Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing Indian American performing arts through multilingual storytelling, visual arts, and community dialogue. Past productions have traveled to Chicago, Nashville, Atlantic City, and San Francisco, steadily extending the group’s national footprint.
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