Bhubaneswar, Sept. 10: The Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra award ceremony concluded yesterday with an audio-visual representation on the life of Biju Patnaik.

Artistes of Srjan, a dance institute founded in 1993 by Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra, presented their creation "Mahanayaka Bijayananda", an Odissi dance on the life and work of the late statesman.

"A brave and dynamic leader of the masses, his magnetic personality and dedication shaped his destiny as a political luminary with a huge following. His courage and fearlessness in the face of adversity makes him a legend. Kind and generous by nature, he shared the joys and sorrows of the people. His name, Bijayananda (victorious in bringing joy) speaks eloquently of his deeds aimed at spreading happiness among the common folk. Thus, his name Bijayananda was very appropriate," said Ratikant Mohapatra from Srjan who choreographed the production.

Laxmikant Palit composed the music of the event, the script was written by Jaydev Das and the lyrics was written by Nityananda Misra.

A group of eight dancers enacted various stages of achievement in the leader's career.

"The last scene where the dancers enacted his death scene was moving. The co-ordination among the artistes was remarkable," said Namrata Tripathi, a member of the audience.

This year, the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Award was presented to Dhruba Charan Biswal in the field of dance andShyamamani Devi in the field of music.

Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Yuva Pratibha Samman was conferred to Lingaraj Pradhan from Bhubaneswar and Namrata Mehta from Mumbai for Odissi dance, Jyotsna Jagannathan from Bangalore for Bharatanatyam and Jateen Kumar Sahoo from Mumbai for music.

The first event in the inaugural evening was Ekatatwa, in which Daksha Mashruwala, Uma Dogra and Vaibhav Arekar came together with three classical dance performances - Odissi, Kathak and Bharatanatyam.

The audience had a lot of appreciation for an jugalbandi of flute by Annada Prasanna Pattanaik and veena by Puspa Kashinath, accompanied on the tabla by Udayaraj Karpur. A number of artistes from across the country performed at the festival.

The festival started on September 5. The objective of the festival is to sensitise youngsters about the Indian classical music and various dance forms.