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International Children's Dance Festival in Bulgaria June 6, 2013 Noida based Alaknanda Institute for Performing Arts (AIPA) was invited to participate in the International Children's Dance Festival in Bulgaria. 13 countries participated in the festival. It was a rainbow of culture, dance, music, costumes, food and friendship. The theme of the festival was "Friendship without Borders." The 13 dancers of AIPA experienced the value of friendship through culture and art.  The Mayor of Sliven welcomed all the leaders and a child with traditional costume on the first day of the opening in his office. Kavya Tripathi accompanied her guru Alaknanda for the meeting. Saumya Shukla led the group of 12 dancers to a school for introduction and interactive session with the students. It was followed by the wide country parade of all the 13 countries in the Square and grand opening performances by all countries. India represented by AIPA wearing colourful costumes put up an energetic show. The festival organised interactive cultural exchange programs through creative workshops like dance, jewellery making, art, street drawing and aqua park party. Village Aleszandra invited the AIPA team to perform in the village. The young Mayor of the village and his wife welcomed the Indian group with w arm greetings. It was a true cultural exchange when the village children tried to learn dance steps from AIPA dancers. The dinner was special as Tandoori chicken was specially prepared for the team via Internet search!   The 24th of May was the Bulgarian Education Day which was marked by the performances of dance groups from all over Bulgaria. The closing on 25th May was a fanfare of dances of 18 groups who were a big part of the celebration. India was cheered with thunderous applause for its performances.  The dancers from AIPA India were Kavya Tripathi, Maitreiye Sreenivas,  Kishika Mahajan, Gazal Gupta, Ishu Bedi, Nancy Bhati, Umang Sharma, Rujul Dhalaria, Rupalika Johri, Vitasta Sar, Archie Saxena, Aditi Bahed and Nandini.