Chhayanaut announced that it will not organise the annual Pahela Baishakh cultural festivity to welcome the Bengali new year at Ramna Park due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Since 1967, Chhayanaut has been regularly arranging the traditional cultural festivity under the banyan tree at city’s Ramna Park to welcome the Bengali new year. The only exception was in 1971 and we have decided to postpone this year’s festivity amid the global coronavirus outbreak,” Chhayanaut General Secretary Laisa Ahmed Lisa said in a press release.
 
Its organisers and performers have postponed their activities and started helping out the helpless and poor since the Independence Day.

Chhayanaut requested everyone to maintain good hygiene and follow proper health guidelines to take care of each other and stop the spread of coronavirus.  

Earlier, the Cabinet Division instructed the authorities concerned to postpone all programmes of Pohela Baishakh to avoid mass gatherings.

Chhayanaut, founded in 1961, has earned global appraisal for organising the traditional, extravagant cultural festivity of Pahela Baishakh at Ramna Park every year. One of the most awaited festivities in Bangladesh, the traditional cultural presentation of Chhayanaut marking the Pahela Baishakh has earned its fame as one of the grandest regular cultural celebrations in the world.

A Dutch museum that is currently closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus said Monday a painting by Vincent van Gogh on loan for an exhibition was stolen in a raid overnight.

The Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam says "Spring Garden" by the Dutch master was taken in the early hours of Monday.

Museum director Evert van Os said the institution that houses the collection of American couple William and Anna Singer is "angry, shocked, sad" at the theft of the painting.

The value of the work, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, was not immediately known. Police are investigating the theft.

Before the closure, the museum was hosting an exhibition titled "Mirror of the Soul" with works by artists ranging from Toorop to Mondrian, in cooperation with Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.

The museum's collection has a focus on modernism such as neo-impressionism, pointillism, expressionism and cubism.

A Mexico City borough announced Tuesday that Latin America's most famous re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ will be closed to the public for the first time in 177 years to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The lavish, detailed Easter-week Passion of Christ has been played out in the east-side borough of Iztapalapa since 1843, and in recent years has drawn a week-long total of about 2 million spectators.

But due to fears about the spread of the new coronavirus, Iztapalapa borough president Clara Brugada said that for the first time the event will be held in private with no spectators.

Brugada said the Passion of Christ will be re-enacted indoors with a smaller cast and will be "symbolic." All the actors are required by tradition to be borough residents.

Brugada said the event will be transmitted live so people can watch it at home. Ironically, the passion was first performed in 1843 after a cholera outbreak threatened the then-rural hamlet.

Iztapalapa was long ago swallowed by the urban growth of Mexico City. The Passion normally includes huge processions, public re-enactments with huge casts, culminating in the Good Friday re-enactment of the crucifixion in which ropes and a small ledge are used to guarantee the actors' safety.

Marking the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a special programme titled ‘Muktir Mahanayak’ (Great Hero of Freedom) was aired on all the television channels of Bangladesh on Tuesday night.

Amid the fear of the coronavirus pandemic, the programme was aired as a recorded version.

The two-hour festivity started with fireworks, marking the moment when Bangabandhu was born on March 17, 1920.

Opening the show, 100 children sang the National Anthem and ‘Dhonno Mujib Dhonno’, a song dedicated to the Father of the Nation.

Later, 100 renowned Bangladeshi singers performed the theme song of the ‘Mujib Borsho’ along with Bangabandhu’s youngest daughter Sheikh Rehana.

Along with the speeches of President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the programme featured video messages from Nepal's President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Bhutan Lotay Tshering, Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres and OIC Secretary General Dr Yousef Al Othaimeen.
 
PM Sheikh Hasina recited a poem along with her sister Sheikh Rehana, commemorating fond memories with their father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) orchestrated a special performance to portray Bangabandhu's eventful life through a 45-minute theatrical choreographic performance on the life of Bangabandhu titled ‘Shotabdir Mahanayak’, featuring 1,000 artistes.
The performance was planned, directed and choreographed by BSA Director General Liaquat Ali Lucky. Eminent cultural personality Asaduzzaman Noor recited poems on the background of this performance as the narrator.

A troupe of 100 musicians rendered a musical tribute orchestrated by musician Foad Nasser Babu.

Renowned British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan and company staged a special theatrical performance titled ‘Father: Vision of the floating world’.

The show ended with all 1,000 artists singing the song ‘Joy Mujiber Joy’, and a special lasers show following fireworks, live telecast from the South Plaza of Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban.

Cinema halls all over Bangladesh are going into lockdown mode from March 18 to April 2 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh Film Producers-Distributors Association President Khorshed Alam Khosru announced on Monday.

While asked about the ongoing crisis and possibilities of a nationwide shutting down of the cinema halls, Khosru told UNB that the association has decided to close all the halls until April 2.

“As the virus passes from human to human in close proximity, people inside crowded cinema halls are at a higher risk to be contaminated with the virus, so we decided not to continue the shows in any of the halls including the cineplexes from March 18 to April 2,” Khosru told UNB.

If the crisis continues, the longevity of the decision can get extended until the situation gets normal – he further added.