Ratan Thiyam to be honoured with Sangeet Natak Fellow
Source: The Sangai Express / Manipur Info Centre

New Delhi, December 24 2012: Internationally acclaimed theatre director Ratan Thiyam is among three eminent personalities to be honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows in the field of performing arts for the year 2012 .

Writer, director, designer, musician, painter and actor, Ratan Thiyam is one of the most important and influential theatre makers at work in the international performance scene.

A son of Manipuri dance masters, for a time, Thiyam studied painting before turning to writing.

He published his first of six novels in 1961 at the age of 22, wrote poetry and reviews.

Writing led him to theater.

In 1971, he enrolled at the National School of Drama in Delhi, gaining a reputation as a powerful actor and director.

In 1976, he returned to Manipur and founded Chorus Repertory Theatre.

He was also briefly the director of National School of Drama, New Delhi in 1987�88 .

Ratan Thiyam

His plays have traveled, from Aryan Theater, GM Hall, Jawaharlal Nehru Dance Academy (JNMDA) in Manipur to the Shriram Center for Arts, New Delhi and the group's first overseas break was their trip with Chakravyuh to Greece in 1984.His plays have travelled throughout the world, fascinating audiences with their grace and a spectacular style drawn from Manipuri performing arts like Thang-Ta (a Manipuri martial art) and Nata Sankirtana (a classical dance and music form) into his works, which through subversion and reversion, get assimilated into his own distinct form.

He was honored with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1987 and the Padma Shri in 1989 .

His play Chakravyuh got the prestigious "Fringe Firsts Award," from Edinburgh International Theatre Festival in 1987 .

He was the second Indian recipient of John D.Rockefeller Award after Kapila Vatsayan, which is presented yearly by the Trustees of the Asian Cultural Council to an individual from Asia or the United States, who has made a significant contribution to the international understanding, practice, or study of the visual or performing arts of Asia.

The General Council of Sangeet Natak Akademi, the National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama, New Delhi at its meeting held on Friday elected three eminent personalities in the field of performing arts, namely N.Rajam, T.H.Vinayakram and Ratan Thiyam as Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellows (Akademi Ratna).

The Fellowship of the Akademi is the most prestigious and rare honour, which is restricted to a very limited number at a given time.

Presently there are only 40 Fellows of the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

The General Council of the Akademi also selected thirty six (36) persons from the fields of Music, Dance, Theatre and Puppetry for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the year 2012 .

In the field of Music, nine eminent artists, namely Rajashekhar Mansur and Ajay Pohankar for Hindustani Vocal Music, Sabir Khan (Tabla) and Bahauddin Dagar (Rudra Veena) for Hindustani Instrumental Music, O.S.Thyagarajan for Carnatic Vocal Music, Mysore M.Nagaraja, (Violin) and K.V.Prasad (Mridangam) for Carnatic Instrumental Music, Illayaraja for Creative & Experimental Music and Bhai Balbir Singh Ragi (Gurbani) for Other Major Traditions of Music have been selected for the Akademi Award 2012 .

The honour of Akademi Fellow has been conferred since 1954 and Akademi Award since 1952.The honour of Akademi Fellow carries purse money of Rupees three lakhs and Akademi Awards carry Rupees one lakh, besides Tamrapatra and Angavastram.

This year, no one from Manipur has been selected for Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards.