Southland dancer wins folk arts award

Southland dancer, choreographer and teacher Anjani Ambegaokar won one of the dozen $20,000 National Heritage Fellowships, scheduled to be announced today by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. Ambegaokar is a specialist in kathak, one of the ancient classical dance idioms of her native India.

Other recipients this year include Charles T. “Chuck” Campbell, gospel steel guitar player (Rochester, N.Y.); Joe Derrane, Irish American button accordionist (Randolph, Mass.); Jerry Douglas, Dobro player (Nashville, Tenn.); Gerald “Subiyay” Miller, Skokomish Indian oral tradition bearer, carver, basket maker (Shelton, Wash.); Milan Opacich, Tamburitza instrument maker (Schererville, Ind.); Eliseo and Paula Rodriguez, straw applique artists (Santa Fe, N.M.); Koko Taylor, blues singer (Country Club Hills, Ill.); Yuqin Wang and Zhengli Xu, Chinese rod puppeteers (Aloha, Ore.).

In addition, Chum Ngek, Cambodian musician and teacher, (Gaithersburg, Md.) won the 2004 Bess Lomax Hawes Award. The National Heritage Fellowships are this country’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts, and the recipients will be invited to Washington for an awards presentation in September on Capitol Hill.