Sonal Mansingh, Anant Mohapatra to receive ‘Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra’ award

Bhubaneswar, Aug 28 : Rajya Sabha member Dr. Sonal Mansingh will receive the ”Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra” Award 2023 for her immense contributions to Odissi dance.
The award carrying a cash prize of Rs.1 lakh and a citation will be presented to Sonal Mansingh, at the 29th OMC Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (GKCM) Award Festival 2023 to be held here from September 5 to 9.
Anant Mahapatra will also be felicitated with the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra award 2023 for his outstanding lifetime achievements in the realm of Theatre.
The GKCM Award Festival 2023, a premier event in the cultural calendar of Odisha launched in 1995, is organised by Srjan annually and will be held in collaboration with the institutional support of Sri Sri University, Cuttack.
Srjan will also host its flagship annual classical dance and music festival in memory of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, with the aim of creating and sustaining awareness of our classical traditions in dance and music.
The Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Yuva Pratibha Samman 2023, with a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 and a citation will be presented to four exceptionally talented performing artistes under the age of 40 years in the field of classical dance and Odissi music to acknowledge their outstanding performances.
Arupa Gayatri Panda and Siddhi Waikar will receive the same for Odissi dance, while Vishal Krishna will be honoured with the Yuva Samman for Kathak and Arup Das for Odissi music (Mardala).
The Award Festival will witness solo dance performances accompanied by a live orchestra in the first half of each evening, followed by music recitals in the second half.
The inaugural evening will open with an Odissi dance recital by Shashwati Garai Ghosh, followed by the Carnatic violin duo of Lalgudi GJR Krishnan and Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi.
Subsequent evenings present Kathak by Shila Mehta, Bharatanatyam by P. Praveen Kumar, and Kuchipudi by Amrita Lahiri.
Each of these dance performances will be followed by musical recitals that feature a Hindustani vocal rendering by Jayateerth Mevundi, a Sitar musical by Niladri Kumar and a Tabla recital by Akram Khan, respectively.
On the concluding evening is the prestigious award ceremony, followed by the much-awaited finale by the Srjan ensemble led by Ratikant Mohapatra.
They will present Āvāhanam—Invoking excellence in Art and beyond, a refreshing amalgam of the traditional and the experimental in a bouquet of neo- classical choreographs in Odissi dance.