Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards For Sitara Devi, Bhupen Hazarika  Sitara Devi |
President Pratibha Patil awarded the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi awards at a star-studded ceremony in New Delhi on Tuesday to Veteran Kathak dancer Sitara Devi and musician Bhupen Hazarika.
The two along with stage designer Khaled Chowdhury and scholar of performing arts R.C. Mehta were presented the coveted Akademi Fellowship honours at the function in Vigyan Bhavan in recognition of their contribution to performing arts.
Conferring the awards, President Patil made a strong pitch for "sustenance and conservation of performing arts and their traditional masters". She exhorted the Akademi to "identify the masters who today live in meagre conditions and support them".
She said the performing arts were repositories of the "guru-shishya parampara and centuries old oral traditions are all unique to India and their perpetuation was essential to keep alive various aspects of the cultural legacy of the nation".
The Akademi Fellowship carries a purse of Rs.100,000 and a citation. The Akademi Fellowship is restricted to 30 living people at any given point of time.
Besides the fellowship, the general council of the Sangeet Natak Akademi also selected 34 practitioners of music, dance and theatre for 33 awards, including one joint award for the Akademi Puraskar for the year 2008.
Some of those who were honoured by the Akademi's general council included musicians Ulhas Kashalkar, M.R. Gautam (Hindustani vocal music), Ramesh Mishra (Sarangi), Krishna Ram Chaudhary (Shehnai), Puranam Purushottama Sastri (Carnatic vocal), dancers Saroja Vaidyanathan (Bharatnatyam), Shashi Shankla (Kathak), Kalamandalam Kuttan (Kathakali) and Ramani Ranjan Jena (Odissi); and theatre personalities like Markand Bhatt, S. Ramanujam and Probir Guha.
Shakuntala Nagarkar (Maharastra), Birabar Sahoo (Orissa), Mangi Bai Arya (Rajasthan), L. Heramot Meitei, Thang-Ta (Manipur), Lakha Khan Mangniyar (Rajasthan), and Hilda Mit Lepcha (Sikkim) were honoured for their contribution to folk and tribal genres of the arts.
Addressing the gathering, Patil said, "These awards while undoubtedly recognising individual excellence also serve to remind us of the richness, variety and profundity of our cultural heritage."
The president congratulated the Akademi for its work over more than 50 years "in encouraging performing arts and preserving some of the art forms".
"The Akademi must consider exploring options like setting up a digital library to provide people easy access to the wealth of the archival material at the disposal of the library," she said.
Patil urged the Akademi to set up linkages with other institutions across the country and abroad to "promote an exchange of ideas and enrichment of techniques for revival and preservation of folk music, dance and drama".
