4 Eminent Artistes From Odisha To Receive Sangeet Natak Akademi Amrit Award

Bhubaneswar: Four eminent artists of Odisha will be conferred with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Amrit Award-2022.

The awardees are Chhau dancer Siba Prasad Das, theatre director Anant Mahapatra, folk musician (Brahma veena player) Ananda Bag, and Gotipua dancer Gobinda Chandra Pal.

The Akademi announced the award list on Friday following its general council meeting in New Delhi. The awards will be conferred by the President of India Droupadi Murmu in a special investiture ceremony.

Besides, New Delhi-based Odissi dancer Kumkum Lal, who was a student of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, has also been selected for the award.

The Akademi also announced Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the years 2019, 2020, and 2021. Majority of these awards will be given to practitioners of Chhau and Odissi dance forms this year.

Sutapa Talukdar and Rajendra Kumar Pattnaik will receive the awards for Odissi and Chhau dance forms respectively in 2019 and Odissi dancer Rabindra Atibudhi and Chhau dancer Trilochan Mohanta for the year 2020.

For 2021, Singer Susmita Das will receive the award for Sugam Sangeet and Bijay Kumar Jena will get the award for dance, and Manoj Pattnaik for theatre direction.

Susmita will be conferred the award for her poetry-based songs based on contemporary issues.

Notably, both the Amrit Award and Akademi Puraskar carry a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh, a Tamrapatra, and an Angavastram each.

It is pertinent to mention here that the award is a one-time honour conferred by the Akademi on artistes under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to commemorate 75 years of India’s Independence.