Swami Dayananda Saraswathi on Saturday called for preserving “Bharathiya” culture. “It is in our dance, music, literature, costumes and even food,” he said at the inauguration of the silver jubilee Margazhi Mahotsav and Nalli Sangeetha Nrithya Vizha of Bharat Kalachar.
He congratulated Bharat Kalachar and its chairman Mrs. Y.G.Parthasarathy for working to preserve Indian culture and for encouraging artists since its inception. “An artist is one, who is born with talent and is one who brings along with them certain innate capacities.
These capacities have to be tapped and marshalled, for which a guru is required. To become an artist, one must work intelligently with the help of a teacher,” he said.
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In her silver jubilee address, Mrs. Y.G.Parthasarathy said that Bharat Kalachar was started 25 years ago by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and her husband YGP. “Bharat Kalachar was started with an aim to provide a platform for talented youngsters to perform before an audience,” she said.
Bharat Kalachar Secretary Y.Gee Mahendra, cultural consultant Madhuvanthi Arun and Joint Secretary Sudha Mahendra also spoke. Various awards were presented to over 40 performing artists on the occasion.
The annual souvenir was released by Rajiv Gupta, Zonal Manager, Bank of India, and the first copy was received by Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetti.
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Gnana Kala Bharathi award was presented to mridangam maestro Umayalpuram K.Sivaraman; Viswa Kala Bharathi award went to Mandolin U.Shrinivas, Sudha Raghunathan, Alarmel Valli and Malavika Sarukkai; Natya Kaladhar award to O.S.Arun; Acharya Kala Bharathi award to Srimushnam V.Raja Rao, Anitha Guha; Kala Seva Bharathi award was presented to Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetti and the Nadaga Kala Bharathi went to R.Neelakantan (Neelu).
Bharat Kalachar's Velli Vizha Sangeetha/ Nrithya Kala Bharathi awards instituted in memory of YGP and Semmangudi R.Srinivasa Iyer by Mrs. Y.G.Parthasarathy, were also presented.
The awards went to Neyveli R.Santhanagopalan, P.Unnikrishnan, N.Vijay Siva, R.K.Shriram Kumar (violin), B.Kannan (veena), Sriram Parasuram and Anooradha Sriram, J.Vaidhyanathan (mridangam), S.Karthick (ghatam), B.S.Purushotham (kanjira) and K.S.R.Aniruddha.
Priya Sisters -- Shanmukhapriya and Haripriya -- and Kalpana Raghavender also received Velli Vizha Sangeetha Kala Bharathi awards.
Velli Vizha Nrithya Kala Bharathi awards were presented to dancers Meenakshi Chittaranjan, Priyadarshini Govind, and Urmila Sathyanarayana.
Young achievers
The Yuva Kala Bharathi Awardees 2011 were Mahadevan Sankaranarayanan (Carnatic vocal), S.Mahathi (Carnatic vocal), V.Deepika (Carnatic vocal), Cuddalore S.J.Jananiy (Carnatic vocal), Shreya Devnath (violin), Trichy S.Krishnaswamy (ghatam), Mylai R.Mahendran (Nadaswaram), K.Sathyanarayana (keyboard), Deepika Potarasu (Kuchipudi), Revathy Kumar (all rounder in Bharathanatyam, vocal and nattuvangam), Navia Natarajan (Bharathanatyam), Aishwarya N.Balasubramanian (Bharathanatyam), and Ritwika Ghosh (Bharathanatyam).