The fifth and final evening of the famed annual Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra memorial festival of dance and music concluded on Saturday here with presentation of the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Awards on two of Odisha’s distinguished artistes - Cuttack-based singer Shyamamani Debi for Odishi music and Dhruba Charan Biswal from Rourkela for Odishi dance.
Each of the awards, sponsored by corporate giant Nalco, carries a cash award of Rs 1 lakh, a shawl and a plaque of the logo of host Srjan that was designed by the legendary Guru.
India’s celebrated dance critic leela Venkatraman, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan and former Commissioner of Culture Ashok Kumar Tripathy presented the awards.
Four young and acclaimed artistes of the country were also presented the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Yuva Prativa Puraskar (young talent award) on the occasion. They were Mumbai-based Odishi vocalist Jatin Kumar Sahu who is from Odisha, Bharatanatyam dancer Jyotsna Jagannathan from Bengaluru, Odishi dancer Namrata Mehta from Mumbai and Bhubaneswar-based Odishi dancer lingaraj Pradhan.
lingaraj and Jyotsna have been recipients of the prestigious Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Prativa Puraskar, considered as national awards for young artistes from the Central Government. Each of the awards carries a cash award of Rs 25,000, a shawl and a plaque.
All the awardees eloquently spoke on Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra’s amazing inspiration and impact on their lives as artistes.
“His creativity was of Himalayan heights. And ‘keep your eyes and ears open’ was the secrecy of his deep insight and incredible creativity. He had the amazing ability to observe everything ordinary happening around him and incorporate the observation into his art in the most beautiful manner,” observed leela Venkatraman who was associated with the Guru for several decades.
Addressing the occasion, Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan felt that art and culture carries reflections of the contemporary life and can be a powerful tool to portray the social reality. Referring to an Odishi dance production of the Bhubaneswar-based Odisha Dance Academy on the Super Cyclone of 1999, he revealed how high level Government officials and planners from Delhi could feel the tragedy better by watching the dance-drama. “It was literally a visual memorandum of the devastation that clicked,” he pointed out.
“I am curious to see how the life of a statesman like Biju Patnaik could be portrayed through Odishi dance,” he added as host Srjan’s Odishi dance production “Mahanayak Bijayananda” was set to be presented.
Choreographed by Ratikant Mohapatra, the presentation received recurring rounds of applause from the jam-packed audience in the auditorium at the Rabindra Mandap.