The Hindu : National : Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship

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Tuesday, Feb 01, 2005

National

National

Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JAN.31. Zohra Segal, veteran stage and film actress, and Chandralekha, dancer-choreographer, are among the six leading lights of the country's cultural horizon who were elected fellows of the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Christened `Akademi Ratna,' they were elected for the distinction restricted to 30 persons at any given time for their contribution in the field of performing arts.

Besides Ms. Segal and Ms. Chandralekha, the other four newly elected fellows are Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair, leading Kathakali performer, Annapurna Devi, musician, Tapas Sen, eminent theatre lighting technician, and Bindhya Basini Devi, folk artiste. They were elected at the meeting of the General Council of the Akademi this past Saturday.

This apart, eight artistes each have been selected for the Akademi Puraskar in music, dance, theatre and traditional/folk/tribal/dance/music/theatre and puppetry. The eight musicians picked for the award are Balwant Rai Bhat and the Singh Bandhu (Surinder Singh and Tejpal Singh) for Hindustani vocal, Suresh Talwalkar (tabla) and Ashish Khan (sarod) for Hindustani instrumental, Bombay sisters (C. Saroja and C. Lalitha) and Thiruvengadu A. Jayaraman for Carnatic vocal, Madras A. Kannan (mridangam) and Prapancham Sitharam (flute) for Carnatic instrumental.

The dancers selected for the Akademi Puraskar are Nirmala Ramachandran (Bharatanatyam), Saswati Sen (Kathak), Kalamandalam Vasu Pisharoti (Kathakali), Durlav Chandra Singh (Odissi), Pasumarthy Seetharamiah (Kuchipudi), Shashadhar Acharya (Chhau), Kalamandalam Sugandhi (Mohiniattam) and Jatin Goswami (Satriya).

In theatre, the eight artistes chosen for the Akademi Puraskar are Swadesh Deepak (Hindi) and Indira Parthasarathy (Tamil) for playwriting, Anuradha Kapoor, Arambam Lokendra Singh and Raj Besaria for direction, Rohini Hatangadi and Ramcharan Nirmalkar for acting and Prema Karanth for allied theatre arts (costume designing).

The Akademi Puraskar for traditional arts has gone to Hans Raj Hans for folk music (Punjab), Naren Gurung for folk music and dance (Sikkim), Kidangoor Rama Chakyar for Kutiyattam (Kerala), J. Lal Hluna for folk music (Mizoram), Ibemni Devi for Khongjom Parba (Manipur), Satyaram Reang for tribal music (Tripura), Maguni Charan Kuanr for puppetry (Orissa) and Kanhailal Maharana for Seraikella Chhau mask-making (Jharkhand).

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