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 The Sangeet Natak Akademi undergoes the rites of passage - Shanta Serbjeet Singh, New Delhi e-mail: shanta.serbjeetsingh@gmail.com July 1, 2009 The old order changeth, yielding place.... After five years, the country's premier performance arts body, The Sangeet Natak Akademi, is all set to get a new Governing Council and a new Executive. This process begins soon after the General Elections, (provided they run par course) with the nomination of five names by the Government. The outgoing Culture Minister Ambika Soni seems to have signed in the five she chose almost as she shifted office from one wing of Shastri Bhavan to another (she is the new Information & Broadcasting Minister). They are Dr. Kiran Seth, fountainhead of SPIC-MACAY, Geeta Chandran, Bharatanatyam dancer and activist, Raja Reddy, Kuchipudi doyen, Vijay Kitchlew, founder of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata and the Jt. Secretary, Dept. of Culture, Shri NC Goel, as the ex-officio member. The present Chairman, Ram Niwas Mirdha, will continue for another year so as to complete his full five years, having come in a year later, in 2005, after the Amrit Manthan caused by the dismissal of then Chairperson, Sonal Mansingh. SNA watchers will miss the perspicacious, tireless theatreman, the Vice Chairman, Kavalam Narayan Pannikar.Also many state representatives like the evergreen GS Channi, Chairman of the Punjab SNA. He will be replaced by Bhai Baldeep Singh, the maverick singer and archivist of Gurbani, nominated by the Badal Government.Some others like Kamal Tiwari, however, a theatre person, nominated as before from Haryana, will hopefully help with the concept of continuity. It is festival time again.The Festival in Russia, to last for all of one year, began in mid-June at the Bric Summit in Ekaterinburg in Russia with young Yamini Reddy, daughter and disciple of the no-introductions-needed Kuchipudi exponents, Raja and Radha Reddy having the honour to perform at the inaugural concert before the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and the Russian President Vladimir V Putin. The BRIC countries, (Brazil, Russia, India, China) account for 42 percent of the world's population and we lay great store by cultural exchanges with them. In fact the next mega festival that ICCR is putting together is in China, sometime in spring 2010. Of the over 80 concerts planned for Russia are those by the violin maestro L Subramaniam, who performed on the 1st June in Moscow. Those by Malavika Sarukkai, vocalist Madhup Mudgal, puppeteer Dadi Padamjee, Rock Band Indian Ocean / Parikrama, Bharatanatyam dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant, dancer Tanushree Shankar, magician PC Sarkar Jr, and Amjad Ali Khan will happen as the year rolls by. Next on the anvil is a mega festival in China beginning in spring 2010 and an even bigger one in America, from 1st March to 20th March 2011. Watch this space for details. Responses  Shanta Serbjeet Singh, for twenty-five years, columnist, critic and media analyst for The Hindustan Times, The Economic Times and The Times of India, is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Sangeet Natak Akademi and Delhi Govt.'s Sahitya Kala Parishad for her contribution to the field of culture. She just finished her term as Vice Chairman of the SNA, is the founder-secretary of the World Culture Forum and continues as Chair of the UNESCO created NGO APPAN (The Asia-Pacific Performing Arts Network), a position to which she was appointed in 2001. Singh has authored several well-known publications such as 'Indian Dance: The Ultimate Metaphor' (published by Ravi Kumar (Paris), 'The 50th Milestone: A Feminine Critique' (Sterling Publishers, to mark India's fiftieth anniversary of Independence), 'Nanak, The Guru' (Oxford University Press) and 'America and You' (22 editions). |
