The Shantala Natya Shri Award is an award given every year by the Government of Karnataka to dancers in recognition of their contributions in the field of classical dance. Shantala Devi, the queen of Vishnuvardhana, the Hoysala king, was a dancer who made great contributions to classical dance and architecture. The award is named after her.
The award consists of a plaque, shawl, garland and cash reward of 5 lakhs (0.5 Million) Indian rupee. It was in 2009, the amount was increased to 5 lakhs.
Since its inception in 1995, the award has been given to a total of 26 individuals. K. Venkatalakshamma was the first dancer to receive the award and the most recent recipient is Revathi Narasimhan, who was awarded in the year 2024.
Awardees Year Recipient Reference 1995 K. Venkatalakshamma 1996 U. S. Krishnarao, Bangalore 1997U.S. Krishnarao, Mangalore 1998 H. R. Keshava Murthy 1999 Maya Rao 2000 Muralidhara Rao 2001 S. Narmada 2002 Shachitarao 2003 C. Radhakrishna 2004 Jayalakshmi Alva 2005 Leela Ramanathan 2006 K. B. Madhav Rao 2007 T. S. Bhat 2008 K. M. Raman 2009 Ullal Mohan Kumar 2010 Radha Sridhar 2011 Lalitha Srinivasan, Bangalore 2012 Vasundhara Doraswamy 2013 Padmini Priyadarshini 2014 Vithalashetti, Mangalore 2015 M. Shakuntala, Bangalore 2016 Ushadathar, Bangalore 2017 Nandini Ishwar, Mysore 2018 B. Bhanumati2022-23Chitra Venugopal2023-24Revathi Narasimhan2024-25 Padmini Ravi
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