city folk will be in for a treat this weekend as artistes from across the state will come together to perform at the varna sankranti kala utsav the oneday cultural festival will comprise art exhibitions dance and musical performances and more there will be several artistes from karnataka performing at the utsav the highlight of the event is the yakshagana performance that we have been organizing for the past few years says ganapathi s hegde president of cobalt forum of art and music that is organizing the eventthe aim of having such festivals says ganapathi is to introduce as many people to folk art like yakshagana and other musical genres and artistes there is art all over the country however by having artistes from our own state its like getting in touch with your own roots we want to keep the tradition alive by having performances like yakshagana and sugama sangeet it helps people understand the folk theatre form well when they witness such performances hence we get several artistes from the north and south canara region a cultural festival like this gives a platform for the artistes to perform in front of a large crowd it sort of becomes like an exchange of culture between the artistes and the people says ganapathihe also adds that over the past 10 years people have become more curious about such performances the first time we introduced yakshagana at the utsav people were very happy and since then every year they enquire about the festival the number of people attending has also gone up in the past few years i am glad to see that we are able to create interest in the younger generation as well says ganapathi the utsav ganapathi says will cater to children as well as adults there will be a painting competition for children in the morning and musical and cultural performances in the evening he sums up