Srjan artistes’ Mahanayaka Bijayananda on Biju Patnaik brings curtains down on fest

Bhubaneswar: The concluding evening of 23rd OMC Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra Award Festival started with the customary award giving ceremony. The award was instituted in 1995 with a view to generate a feeling of cultural amity among the performing arts fraternity and acknowledging the excellence and contribution of great artists in the field of dance, music, theatre and cinema.

This year, the NALCO Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Award 2017 was presented to Guru Dhruba Charan Biswal in the field of dance and Shyamamani Devi in the field of music. Lingaraj Pradhan (Bhubaneswar) and Namrata Mehta (Mumbai) for Odissi dance, Jyotsna Jagannathan (Bangalore) for Bharatnatyam and Jateen Kumar Sahoo (Mumbai) for Odissi music were felicitated with NALCO Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Yuva Pratibha Samman 2017.

The evening saw artistes of Srjan performing ‘Tarana’ while embarking on a new pathway of innovation. It was followed by ‘Hari Smarane’, which was an attempt to represent, only symbolically, the essence of Jayadev’s Geeta Govinda strictly within the confines of Odissi grammar.

The programme concluded with an audio-visual special presentation ‘Mahanayaka Bijayananda’, an Odissi performance on the life and work of former chief minister of Odisha Biju Pattnaik. While the dance was choreographed by Ratikant Mohapatra, the music was by Laxmikant Palit, script by Jaydev Das and lyrics by Nityananda Misra.

The dignitaries, who graced the occasion, were R. Balakrishnan, Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary, Odisha; Ashok Kumar Tripathy, Former Member Board of Revenue; Leela Venkatraman, dance critic, and Guru Ratikanta Mohapatra, Director, Srjan.