Veteran Yakshagana Guru and artiste Hostota Manjunath Bhagwat passed away here on Tuesday. He was 80.
He was not well for the last few days. His last rites were performed at Vidyanagar in the town on Tuesday evening.
Born at Hostota on February 15, 1940, Manjunath Bhagwat was a well-known Yakshagana performer. He had learnt the nuances of Yakshagana from his guru Keremane Shivarama Hegde and was proficient in each and every aspect of Yakshagana - singing, dancing, make-up and playing of drums.
He has composed more than 160 Yakshagana plays, including Sri Ram Niryan, Sri Rama Mahime and Sri Krishna Mahime. He had embraced monkhood in 1966.
Yakshagana training
Hostota had conducted Yakshagana training programmes at over 75 places and had trained over 1,600 students. With concern towards environment, he penned Yakshagana Prasangas like ‘Govardhan Giri Puje’, ‘Nisarga Sandhana’ and ‘Prakruthi Sandhana’ which were staged in Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa.
He had received a number of awards for his contribution to the field of Yakshagana, including Karnataka Rajyotsava Award (1987), Karnataka Yakshagana Academy’s Parthisubba Award (2012), Special Award of Janapada Academy (2012), Keremane Shivaram Hegde Award (2014), Alva’s Nudisiri Award and Kendra Sangeet Nataka Academy Award (2016).
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