Celebrating 100 years of Manipuri dance at Shantiniketan

A Correspondent

Agartala: The Manipuri society in Tripura is celebrating 100 years of induction of the Manipuri dance in Shantiniketan by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore picked up the art form while in Agartala. A cultural team from Manipur has already visited the State in the last week of October and performed to mark the occasion.

It is learned that the celebration will continue for one year to be culminated in a grand programme to be celebrated some time in 2020 when the centenary of the journey of Manipuri dance will complete its one hundred years.

Rabindranath Tagore was first enthralled with this dance form at Shyllet in the then East Bengal and subsequently he once again watched it in Agartala and requested the then Maharaja Radha Kishor Manikya to give him a Manipuri dance teacher for Shantiniketan.

The Maharaja was very much happy with the request and sent Rajkumar Budhimanta Singh to Shantiniketan. This is how the Manipuri dance was first introduced at Shantiniketan and from where it got global acceptance. The Manipuri community in Tripura recalls this event with pride while the Manipuri artists’ visited last month also acknowledged the great event.

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