The seventh Guru Debaprasad Award 2013 organised by the city based dance institute ‘Tridhara’ and hosted at the Rabindra Mandap here concluded with much fanfare on Wednesday.
Guru Debaprasad Award 2013 was conferred to four distinguished danseuses, Odissi guru Sudhakar Sahoo, Bharatnatyam dancer Padmashree Geeta Chandran, Dr Anita Ratnam for contemporary dance and Guru Shashadhara Acharya for Chhau Nrutya on the occasion.
Attending as the chief guest in award giving ceremony, Governor SC Jamir said Odisha is a land of art and artists. The audience is also equally thrilling, he added. Jamir congratulated the awardees and praised the effort of Tridhara for organising the festival. The award will encourage the artists, he hoped.
Chairman of Dance History Society Ashish Mohan Khokar, who was the chief mentor of the festival, said, “Odissi today is the second most learnt dance style in India after Bharatnatyam.” He referred to Guru Debaprasad Das and his contribution towards spreading the Odissi dance in international level. On the occasion, the 15th anniversary of “Attendance” of Ashish M Khokar was released by Jamir.
The three-day festival was a mixture of classical dance and music witnessed by well assembled performing artists and lovers of classical dance and music across the country. The inaugural evening commenced with a group dance performance “Gananayak Panchakam” by dancers of Tridhara. This item was followed by sitar solo recital by famous sitar maestro Ustad Saeed Zafer Khan and tabla presentation by Rashid Zafar Khan.
In the award giving ceremony, Dr Anita Ratnam performed solo contemporary dance followed by Saraikella chhau dance performance by Guru Shashadhara Acharya. The concluding evening featured with a Bharatnatyam solo by Padmashree Geeta Chandran, group Mardal recital by Guru Dhaneswar Swain and Badyabani Gurukul, Odissi dance by Ananya Kannan and Odissi vocal recital by Dr Sangeeta Gosain.
Among others, the festival was graced by Culture department director Sushil Kumar Das, Justice Indrajit Mahanty, working president, Tridhara, Simanchal Panda, Chief Income Tax Commissioner Santosh Kumar Srivastav, SP Kannan and Guru Ramahari Das. The festival had kick-started on October 28. Tridhara director Guru Gajendra Kumar Panda gave welcome speech in the inaugural ceremony.