Thread by @veejaysai

The entire classical dance community is in a state of shock with the recent Padma awards! And the @MinOfCultureGoI, @kishanreddybjp @KishanReddyOfc, @M_Lekhi have much to answer, some uncomfortable questions from a community that was neglected the last seven years.

A thread.

The recent awardees in dance were sisters Nalini and Kamlini for Kathak. Padmaja reddy for Kuchipudi.

While those Kathak sisters are old members of the Sangh and hence not too difficult to get with in-house recommendations, the Kuchipudi candidate surprised many.

Padmaja Reddy, a rich and influential socialite, but a highly mediocre dancer, from Hyderabad is the daughter in law of a Telangana minister. She has at times used names of popular Gurus and said she was their student. She was briefly a student of Shobha Naidu.

In 2016, her name came up for the @sangeetnatak award. That itself shocked everyone because she had zero history of performance. Later it was known that she bribed her way through committee members and managed the award. Her post-award performance in Delhi was horrible!

There was outrage in the Kuchipudi community and the then @sangeetnatak chairperson Shri Shekhar Sen apologized on her selection and confessed the Akademi doesn't have a history of withdrawing an award, once announced. Padmaja Reddy got away with murder!

Veteran dance critic Leela Venkataraman ji wrote about the @sangeetnatak awards and the performances that followed in @Narthakiweb, the biggest online portal for all Indian dance news. You can read it here.

narthaki.com/info/taalam/ta…

I too attended her that particular performance at @sangeetnatak and was outraged enough to put out an opinion on SM. After this Padmaja Reddy tried to reach out to all of us including me and threatened to file a defamation case. I told her to go ahead. We knew it was just rubbish

In all this Padmaja was clearly aided by someone in the local @TelanganaCMO government. The newly formed Telangana state was eager to have their own dance form, as Kuchipudi went to Andhra. They tried to hype Perini dance of Nataraja Ramakrishna but failed miserably.

The Telangana govt is full of people who are absolutely clueless about arts and culture. Their political motives drive their decisions. Suddenly the need for a State dance became an issue. They formed a committee of idiots to create a new dance form called 'Kakatiya Nrithyam'. 🙄

This Padmaja Reddy caught hold of them through her local influence and they began to negotiate a deal of creating this new dance form. A new narrative was spun to say she had done extensive research and rediscovered/recreated this new dance form.

Absolutely ridiculous!

Let me put it on record that nobody, literally nobody knew of her before the @sangeetnatak award fiasco. Within such a short time, for zero contribution to the art form, she has now managed the Padma Shri award.

Did the @MinOfCultureGoI do its due diligence?

Who were the domain experts for classical dance? Were there any at all? Or was it random bureaucrats deciding about a field they knew nothing about?!

Whose were the other names in dance? There are far more qualified professionals with better contribution than Padmaja Reddy!

We can see that Padmaja Reddy is an over ambitious woman and might even make it to becoming the chairperson or vice chairperson of @sangeetnatak! She has already managed her way into several other boards like @iccr_hq.

But what is the @MinOfCultureGoI doing?! 🙄

In Delhi we have senior dancers like @sonal_mansingh ji who is an MP, others like @PrathibhaP ji and the famous @rajaradhareddy ji of Kuchipudi, all of who are close to the ministry of @MinOfCultureGoI.

We wish they get involved into this and stop any further damage.

The last 7 years, Indian classical dance community was neglected by Padma awards. Except for an odd veteran, so many who deserve these awards for their stellar contributions, were neglected. More so in Kuchipudi.

Kuchipudi is on a ventilator. It desperately needs help!

Twice same govt at the centre.
Twice the same person.
Twice the same mistake.
No due diligence done.

One one side @narendramodi @PMOIndia says culture is India's soft power. On the other side, absolute negligence in the industry. Artistes will not speak up for obvious reasons!

Meanwhile, down in Telangana, they are all set to make this rather dubious new creation called 'Kakatiya Nrithyam' the official state dance form.

This is going to be a joke!

Who is responsible? The @TelanganaCMO @RaoKavitha and their clueless ministers!

🙄🤦🏻‍♂️