As many as 40 singers, dancers, painters and writers of the State have been awarded the prestigious National Fellowship in senior and junior categories from the Union Ministry of Culture to conduct research into their fields of specialisation.
The largest chunk of the awardees has gone to the field of folk culture that Odisha is known for.
According to the list released by the Ministry on Monday, the unique unmasked Chhau dance of Mayurbhanja has got five fellowships. Santosh Kumar Mohanta, Dillip Kumar Mishra (senior category) and Barnarupa Mohanty, Shiba Charan Mohanta (junior category) for dance while Anand Kumar Das has been awarded for Chhau music in junior category. Interestingly, all the five awardees are from Baripada, the epi-centre of Mayurbhanja Chhau.
In folk dance category, Ranjit Sahu (Sambalpur), Subrat Kumar Das and Diptiranjan Mohapatra (both from Bhubaneswar) have received the senior fellowship while Alok Bishoyi (Ganjam) has won the junior fellowship. Besides, Rajendra Padhi of Koraput (folk music), Tapaswini Patel of Cuttack (folk song), Rabinarayan Sahoo of Bargarh (folk theatre) have won senior fellowships while Ashwini Kumar Patel of Bargarh (folk music), Bijayini Mishra of Nuapada (folk song) and Sumitra Parhi of Bhadrak (other areas) have been chosen for junior fellowships. Niladri Bihari Mishra of Keonjhar has been awarded the senior fellowship on Juanga tribal culture.
For Odishi dance, Reela Hota (New Delhi) and Dipti Routray (Cuttack) have been the winners of senior fellowships while Pravat Kumar Swain (Bhubaneswar) and Monaswini Mohanty (Mumbai) are for junior fellowships. Laxmy Mohanty of Cuttack and Himanshu Sekhar Swain of Bhubaneswar are the winners in senior and junior categories of Odishi music respectively. Mukunda Prasad Dhal has been recipient of junior fellowship in light classical music category.
In Odia literature section, Sangram Keshari Jena (Bhubaneswar), Santosh Kumar Ratha (Baleswar) and Sangeeta Rath (Cuttack) have been the awardees in senior category while in junior category, Arjun Charan Rout and Suchismita Das are in junior category.
Despite its vibrant presence in Odisha’s cultural canvas, theatre fraternity has reasons to be disappointed – the lone awardee has been Dhirendra Nath Mallick, former Secretary of Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi.
The visual art section has former Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi Secretary Chandramani Biswal, besides Pradosh Kumar Swain as winners of senior fellowships while junior fellowships have gone to Manjushree Biswal Pani (Baripada), Dibyasingh Swain (Bhubaneswar) for graphic art; Girish Chandra Behera (Brahmapur), Laxmipriya Panigrahi (Baleswar) for painting and Sudhiranjan Maharatha of Bhubaneswar for sculpture.
In the new areas of research in the field of culture, Namitarani Nayak of Jajpur (arts and heritage management), Bijaya Kumar Rout of Cuttack and Bikram Keshari Routray of Bhubaneswar (sociology of culture) have been awarded senior fellowships.