Kapila Vatsyayan was a leading scholar of Indian classical dance, art, architecture, and art history. She served as a member of parliament and bureaucrat in India, and also served as the founding director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, popularly known as Ariyakudi, was a Carnatic music vocalist, born in Ariyakudi, a town in the present-day Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. Ariyakudi developed a unique style of singing which came to be known as The Ariyakudi Tradition and is followed by his students. He is credited with establishing the modern katcheri (concert) traditions in Carnatic music.
Sangeet Natak Akademi is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India.
The All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) is an independent arts organisation in India, founded in Delhi in 1928. In the decade after Indian independence, many of its functions were transferred to three national academies: Lalit Kala Akademi, Sangeet Natak Akademi and Sahitya Akademi for the fields of visual arts, theatre arts and literature.
The Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, also known as Akademi Ratna Sadasyata, is an Indian honour for the performing arts presented by Sangeet Natak Akademi. It is "the most prestigious and rare honour" conferred by the Akademi and is "restricted to 40 individuals at any given time".
Rajkumar Singhajit Singh, is a leading exponent, choreographer and a guru of Indian classical dance form of Manipuri, including the Pung cholom and Raslila. He was awarded with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1984 and the Padma Shri in 1986 for his contribution to the Manipuri dance. In the year 2011, Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's The National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama, awarded him with its highest award, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for his contribution to Indian Dance. In 2014 he was also conferred with the Tagore Award.
Pakala Venkataramana Rao Rajamannar (1901–1979) was an Indian judge and politician who served as the acting Governor of Madras State from 1957 to 1958. P.V. Rajamannar was the first Indian to become Chief Justice of Madras High Court after independence from 1948 to 1961. He was also the first Chairman of Sangeet Natak Akademi in New Delhi.
Jyotindra Manshankar Bhatt, better known as Jyoti Bhatt, is an Indian artist best known for his modernist work in painting and printmaking and also his photographic documentation of rural Indian culture. He studied painting under N. S. Bendre and K.G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University (M.S.U.), Baroda. Later he studied fresco and mural painting at Banasthali Vidyapith in Rajasthan, and in the early 1960s went on to study at the Academia di Belle Arti in Naples, Italy, as well the Pratt Institute in New York. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2019 and elected as a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 2022.
N. Rajam is an Indian violinist who performs Hindustani classical music. She remained professor of music at Banaras Hindu University, eventually became head of the department and the dean of the Faculty of Performing Arts of the university.
Bhabesh Chandra Sanyal commonly known as B. C. Sanyal, the doyen of modernism in Indian art, was an Indian painter and sculptor and an art teacher to three generations of artists. During his lifetime he not just saw the partition of the Indian subcontinent three times, 1905, 1947 and 1971, but also witnessed 20th century Indian art in all its phases. His notable paintings include The flying scarecrow, Cow herd, Despair and Way to peace, which depicts Mahatma Gandhi with a Hindu and a Muslim child.
Rahim Fahimuddin Dagar was an exponent of Dagar vani Dhrupad of Indian classical music. He represented the 19th generation of Dagar Tradition. His cousins Nasir Moinuddin Dagar and Nasir Aminuddin Dagar were known as the Senior Dagar Brothers. Similarly, Nasir Zahiruddin and Nasir Faiyazuddin Dagar were known as the Junior Dagar Brothers. His other cousins were Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, Fariduddin Dagar, and H. Sayeeduddin Dagar.
Guru Mayadhar Raut is an Indian classical Odissi dancer, choreographer and Guru.
Shanno Khurana is an Indian classical vocalist and composer, from the Rampur-Sahaswan gharana of Hindustani classical music. A disciple of the doyen of the gharana, Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan, she is known for performing rare bandish and raag, though her singing style includes genres like khayal, tarana, thumri, dadra, tappa, to chaiti and bhajan. Born and brought up in Jodhpur, she started singing on All India Radio in 1945 in Lahore, later shifted to Delhi, where she continued her singing on All India Radio, Delhi and in concerts and music festivals. She also pursued music education, finally earning her M.Phil. and PhD in music from the Kairagarh University, and has undertakes extensive research on folk music of Rajasthan.
Tapas Sen was a noted Indian stage lighting designer, who was an important figure in 20th-century Indian theatre. He started working with Bengali theatre movement in Kolkata in the late 1940s, along with noted directors, Utpal Dutt and Shambhu Mitra. Later he became a founding member of the Indian People's Theatre Association's (IPTA), Delhi chapter, and worked closely with Hindi theatre. Through his career stretching five decades he worked theatre directors, Ebrahim Alkazi, Vijay Tendulkar, and also dancers Sadhana Bose, Chandralekha, Birju Maharaj and Kelucharan Mahapatra. He was known not only for his creative stage lighting, but also had a significant impact on the work of leading theatre director of the time.
Karaikudi Sambasiva Iyer was a renowned Indian classical musician and Veena player.
Professor B. R. Deodhar was an Indian classical singer, musicologist and music educator. He was a vocalist of Khayal-genre of Hindustani classical music.
Anjanibai Malpekar was a noted Indian classical singer, belonging to the Bhendibazaar gharana of Hindustani classical music.
Tarapada Chakraborty was an Indian classical vocalist. He was born in Kotalipara, Faridpur, Bengal Presidency to a Vedic Brahmin family. He is known for the khyal and thumri forms of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of Raagpradhans. He is the pioneer of the Kotali Gharana which is best known for its slow rendition of alap while presenting a raga. He was the first Indian classical artiste to have presented any Raaga in 48-beats vilambit format, which is considered to be a difficult rendition in itself. He is the creator of Raaga Chhaya Hindol and Navamalaka.
Yumlembam Gambhini Devi is an Indian singer of Nata Sankirtana and dancer of Manipuri Raas. She is a member of faculty at Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy (JNMDA) and a recipient of the 1988 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2005, for her contributions to Manipuri dance and music.
