chennai it was a confluence of folk and village arts at island grounds in the city on monday more than 400 performers from across the state gathered to showcase their talent at namma ooru thiruvizha a cultural event organised by the tamil nadu government if the government delivers on its promise the thiruvizha will be part of the annual cultural calendar promoting traditional tamil art forms and folk artistes namma ooru thiruvizha will be celebrated every year chennai is known for margazhi music festival our efforts will be to make our folk arts famous said b chandramohan principal secretary tourism barring a few such as chinnaponnu antonydaasan and gana bala who became popular by working in films most of the performers were relatively unknown but people gathered in huge numbers to watch them i have never performed before such a huge crowd it is a moment of pride for artists like us to feel appreciated said an artist from thiruvannamalai minister of tamil official language and tamil culture thangam thennarasu called it chennai sangamam 20 when kalaignar m karunanidhi was chief minister streets of tamil nadu witnessed sangamam a cultural event spearheaded by dmk mp kanimozhi our chief minister m k stalin has instructed us to conduct such events showcasing traditional art forms across the state he said folk artist and playback singer chinnaponnu said the governments efforts are hugely appreciated by the folk artists fraternity affected for the past two years by the pandemic apart from school and college students families gathered in large numbers and enjoyed the event i read in newspapers that entry was free and convinced my family members to spend the evening even if it is a ticketed event i believe there will be good patronage for such events hope it happens every year said k rahman of royapuram