Mrinalini Vikram Sarabhai

Born:11 May 1918

Died:21 January 2016

She was an Indian classical dancer, choreographer and instructor.
She was the founder and director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, an institute for imparting training in dance, drama, music and puppetry, in the city of Ahmedabad.
She received many awards and citations in recognitions of her contribution to art.
She trained over 18,000 students in Bharatnatyam and Kathakali.
She was the wife of the Indian physicist Vikram Sarabhai.
She has been awarded by the Indian government with the national civilian awards Padma Bhushan in 1992 and the Padma Shri in 1965.
She was honoured with the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (LittD) by the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK in 1997.
She was also the first Indian to receive the medal and Diploma of the French association Archives Internationales de la Danse.
She was nominated to the Executive Committee of the International Dance Council, Paris in 1990 and awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, New Delhi in 1994.
She was presented with a gold medal by the Mexican Government for her choreography for the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico.
The Darpana Academy of Performing Arts celebrated its golden jubilee on 28 December 1998, with the announcement of the annual “Mrinalini Sarabhai Award for Classical Excellence”, in the field of classical dance.
She was the first recipient of the Nishagandhi Puraskaram, an annual award of the Government of Kerala.
The award was presented in 2013.