BHUBANESWAR: Four eminent artistes from the state will be conferred the Sangeet Natak Akademi Amrit Award-2022. The award is an one-time honour conferred by the Akademi on artistes under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to commemorate 75 years of India’s Independence.
The awardees are Chhau dancer Siba Prasad Das, theatre director Anant Mahapatra, folk musician (Brahma veena player) Ananda Bag and Gotipua dancer Gobinda Chandra Pal. New Delhi-based Odissi dancer Kumkum Lal, who was a disciple of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, has also been selected for the award. This was announced by the Akademi on Friday following its general council meeting at New Delhi.
The akademi, on the occasion, also announced Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. A majority of the awards will be given away to practitioners of Chhau and Odissi dance forms this time.
For the year 2019, Sutapa Talukdar and Rajendra Kumar Pattnaik will receive the awards for Odissi and Chhau dance forms respectively. Odissi dancer Rabindra Atibudhi and Chhau dancer Trilochan Mohanta will receive the award for the year 2020.
Singer Susmita Das will receive the award for Sugam Sangeet while, Bijay Kumar Jena will get the award for dance and Manoj Pattnaik for theatre direction for 2021. Susmita will be conferred the award for her poetry-based songs based on contemporary issues. Known to draw young and serious music lovers to meaningful music based on high quality lyrics, herversatility pans through folk, religious, contemporary, and classical music. Both the Amrit Award and Akademi Puraskar carry a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh, a tamrapatra and an angavastram each.
Similarly, the akademi general council announced the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar awards for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Bishwanath Kumbhakar (Chhau), Santosh Rana (Prahlad Natak) will get the award for 2019 while Odissi dancer Pravat Kumar Swain has been selected for 2020, an Odissi dancer from Trinidad, Vinod Kevin Bachan will get it for 2021.