Meet the Devis!
Our next award winner to be featured in the Devi Awards countdown series is Alokananda Roy! Alokananda Roy is not just a pioneering name in performing arts. The dancer who won the Miss Calcutta title, as well as the Miss India first runner up in 1969, is also trained in Indian classical, neo-classical and folk dance forms. Besides training boys and girls in the performance art forms of Indian Neo-Classical styles and Indian folk styles, alongside innovative and simplified forms of Asian-Contemporary dance styles at her institution Chandanaloke, she has also championed designing, choreography and presentations of mega dance-drama productions. She’s also associated in social reform efforts through dance therapy in West Bengal correctional homes, which is an initiative to reform, realign and rehabilitate convicts in the state correctional facilities. Her great body of work with prison inmates has also inspired renowned filmmakers Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy to make the superhit film Muktodhara in 2012. She is also involved in providing care and education to the children of the inmates of the Alipore Women’s Correctional Home and has held dance workshops with the prisoners at Walden House, Los Angeles.
The Devi Awards will be held for the first time in Kolkata on 31st August at the ITC Royal Bengal.