Classical dancer Ananda receives Deba Prasad Das award

Renowned classical dancer Dr Ananda Shankar Jayant has been conferred with the prestigious ‘Guru Deba Prasad Das’ award instituted in memory of the renowned Odissi maestro.

The citation was presented by Odisha Industries and School Education minister Debi Prasad Misra on behalf of the Tridhara dance institution that organised the three-day festival. Hyderabad-based Ananda, who is a Padma Shri-winning exponent of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, she learned from Chennai’s famed Kalakshetra in the 1970s. She is also a choreographer, teacher, writer and top bureaucrat being a motivational speaker in recent times.

At the festival, Ananda presented a tarangam in ragamalika and to the eight-beat Adi talam, essaying Lord Krishna’s childhood heroics and mischief. The intricacies of the eventual ‘jathi’ patterns of foot movements were performed on the edges of a brass plate. Subsequently, a Meera Bhajan (in Mishra Malkauns) portraying the devotion of the 16th-century Krishna devotee for the lord was brought out in total grace.

Ananda, who is a cancer survivor and a senior official with Indian Railway Traffic Service, performed Kuchipudi on the last day of the festival that also featured other award-winning stalwarts, Kumkum Mohanty (Odissi), Saroja Vaidyanathan (Bharatanatyam) and Rajendra Gangani (Kathak). As the Artistic Director of Shankarananda Kalakshetra in Hyderabad, Ananda leads an acclaimed ensemble, besides training and presenting the next generation of Bharatanatyam artists.

Having won the Padma Shri in 2007 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar for Bharatanatyam two years later, she has also been honoured by the Tamil Nadu government’s coveted Kalaimamani and Andhra Pradesh government’s Kala Ratna awards. A TED speaker in 2009, Ananda’s TED talk is now much viewed and ranked as one of 12 Incredible TED talks on cancer. In January this year, the Huffington Post ranked her TED talk as the first of five greatest by any Indian.