P 2 THE DANCE INDIA CCCOOONTENTENTENNNTSTSTS Volume 3 | Issue 8 | February 2019 04 EDITORIAL TEAM 05 EDITOR’S DESK 12 06 CULTURAL BULLETIN 12 TORCH BEARERS Dr (s) Raja and Radha Reddy The Legendary Kuchipudi Couple 22 COVER STORY Pandit Bhimsen Joshi The voice that erased boundaries 22 30 RAYS OF HOPE Haimanti Basu Promoting Indian Culture Abroad 36 REVIEWS 52 REPORTS 54 ARANGETRAM Sujana Kalakota A Star is Born 60 MONTHLY PROGRAMMES 67 CLASSIFIEDS 30 P 3 THE DANCE INDIA EDITORIAL ‘The Dance India’- a monthly cultural magazine in English is our humble attempt to capture the "IF THE ART IS POOR, spirit and culture of art in all its diversity. THE NATION IS SICK." Articles may be submitted for possible publication in the magazine in the following manner. • Send in your articles to [email protected] Please include your full name, contact Editor information (address and telephone number) BR Vikram Kumar and a short bio data. • Articles are published in the magazine only on Executive Editor the condition that the author agrees to the Paul Spurgeon Nicodemus terms of the Copyright Statement and Policy Feature Writers Cover Photograph: Regd. Office: Trivikram Publications, Rajahamsa D.No. 50-01-50/1, ASR Nagar, Avinash Pasricha Seethammadhara, Visakhapatnam - 530 013, A.P. RMK Sharma Coordinators Tel: +91 8897987445 (News, Advertisements & The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by Contributors Subscriptions) the various writers in the articles and reviews do Dr Sunil Kothari not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and Sai Venkatesh Karnataka viewpoints of the editorial team or official New Delhi policies of The Dance India. Kashmira Trivedi Maharashtra Avinash Pasricha All rights reserved. © February - 2019 Alaknanda Noida The contents published in The Dance India New Delhi magazine are an exclusive copyright of Trivikram Lakshmi Thomas, Chennai Publications. No part of the magazine may be Nita Vidyarthi Gayathri Gopi Vellore reproduced in whole or part without the written Kolkata consent of Trivikram Publications. Gopal M Sagar All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction Administration Manager GV Chari New Delhi of competent courts in Visakhapatnam only. KV Lakshmi Dr Kshithija Barve Goa and Kolhapur Edited, Published and Owned by Circulation Manager Seuli Chatterjee Kolkata Bathina Ranga Vikram Kumar, V Srinivas Mobile No. +91-9848137445, on behalf of Basu Sinam Manipur Trivikram Publications from D.No. 50-01-50/1, ASR Nagar, Dr Smruti Vaghela Vadodara Seethammadhara, Dist. Visakhapatnam - 530 013, A.P. and Sheetal Makwana Ahmedabad Printed by G. Sangameswara Rao, at Sri Lekha Power printers D. No : 30-20-30 &31, Nehuru Sreet Technical Advise and Graphic Design Follow us on Seetarampuram, Elluru Road Vijayawada (AndhraPradesh) Editor: Bathina Ranga Vikram Kumar thedanceindiamagazine The Dance India acknowledges the help rendered by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, by way of a financial grant. P 4 THE DANCE INDIA EDITOR’SEDITOR’S DESKDESK adma Awards are one of the prestigious awards given by the Government of India and everybody in the country is aware of it. In recent times, some of the citizens feel that the awards have been losing its Pcredibility - nothing to do with the award as such but everything to do with the procedure involved in selecting the awardees. Earlier, the number of applications received for the awards were in hundreds but today it has reached over forty thousand. Out of which only a few receive the awards. Critics of today are sceptical about of the list of awardees and point towards discrepancies in the selection process. Is the government honouring those who have exhibited exceptional talent remains a question? The applications require thorough scrutiny and it is a time-taking procedure. Another question that pops up is that how is the ministry of home affairs able to process such a large quantity of applications in a matter few days? Are they really going through them? When you look at the recent list of Padma Awards, it makes one wonder if the awards are distributed among the states like the government schemes - according to a ratio. Also, most of the artistes from the art and culture community opine that these awards were given to people either through lobbying, political pressures or for political gains. In the coming days, people urge the government to maintain the credibility of these prestigious awards by honouring those citizens who truly deserve. Jai Hind! BR Vikram Kumar P 5 THE DANCE INDIA Source: PIB About 68.86 Crores of funds collected in NCF he aim of the National Culture Fund (NCF) is to planned budget. Apart from this, there is no fund establish and nurture partnerships in the field of allocated by the government to the National Culture Tculture and heritage between private and public Fund. Besides this, NCF receives contributions and sectors, government, non-government agencies, voluntary donations as endowments from many other private institutions and foundations and mobilize sources. The details, as on March 31, 2018, are as resources for the restoration, conservation, protection below: and development of India's rich, natural, tangible and intangible heritage. Primary Corpus - Rs. 19.50 Crore The following are some of the major objectives of NCF: Interest on Corpus - Rs. 27.32 Crore ♦ To administer and apply the fund for conservation, Project Funds - Rs. 22.04 Crore maintenance, promotion, protection, preservation Total - Rs. 68.86 Crore and upgradation of monuments protected or otherwise; NCF helped in protecting, promoting and preserving ♦ For training and development of a cadre of India's culture by mobilizing resources by approaching specialists and cultural administrators various PSUs, banks, corporate/companies for ♦ For innovations and experiments in arts seeking their participation under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to preserve/protect India's ♦ For documentation of cultural expressions and cultural heritage. forms that have lost their relevance in the contemporary scenario and are either fading out The above information was given by Minister of State or facing extinction. (independent charge) for Culture and Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate change Dr The government had granted Rs 19.50 crore as a one- Mahesh Sharma, in a reply to an Unstarred Question in time corpus fund to National Culture Fund out of the the Rajya Sabha on January 8. A proposal to declare NSD as an Institution of National Importance is under consideration of the government: Dr Mahesh Sharma he Broad-Based Committee (Vision Committee) recommendations, the decision to establish five set up by the National School of Drama (NSD) regional centres during the 11th Five Year Plan period TSociety in February 2005, inter-alia, had (2007-2012), one each at Kolkata, Mumbai/Goa, J&K, recommended the opening of five regional centres of and North-East, besides upgrading the existing the NSD across the country. On the basis of these Regional Resource cum Research Centre, Bengaluru P 6 THE DANCE INDIA NEWS to a full-fledged regional centre, was taken by the Under NSD's Outreach/Extension Programme, two government. These regional centres were to be centres, one in Gangtok (Sikkim) and another in established in consultation with concerned state Agartala (Tripura), are functioning and are also governments, who were required to provide land/ conducting a one-year theatre training course in accommodation for the purpose. So far, only the addition to the one being conducted at Bengaluru government of Karnataka has provided land/ (Karnataka). accommodation in 2013 in Bengaluru for the purpose. No other state government has provided land to the A proposal to declare NSD as an Institution of National NSD for the opening of its regional branches. Importance is under consideration by the government. Till such time a final decision is taken in the matter, the NSD has decided to defer the opening of the regional centres. Sangeet Natak Akademi launches the second phase of the Web Campaign 'SANJHI -MUJH MEIN KALAKAR' angeet Natak Akademi (SNA) the National ♦ Oral traditions and expressions, including language Academy of Music, Dance and Drama will launch as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage; the second phase of the web campaign 'SANJHI S ♦ Performing arts; -MUJH MEIN KALAKAR' an initiative to document and promote the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and ♦ Social practices, rituals and festive events; diverse cultural traditions of the country by direct public- participation. ♦ Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; This is a unique talent search where the participant will showcase their talent in the fields of music, dance, ♦ Traditional craftsmanship drama, puppetry, folk and tribal arts, culinary skills, The first phase of this campaign was earlier initiated in painting, sculpture etc. The literal meaning of the term the month of November 2018 during the festival season S?NJHI is "to share" and "to partner", and the cultural of Diwali. There was mass participation and with great traditions of our country has developed and prospered enthusiasm, people uploaded various audios and on the notions of harmony. videos for music, dance, poetry recitation etc. and The second phase of this campaign, 'SANJHI -MUJH images for visual art forms like painting, craftwork, MEIN KALAKAR', has its main focus area - the folk, terracotta work, rangoli, written poetry, etc. More than traditional, customary, socially events and ritualistic art 500