Odissi - Odissi Gurus and Performers

Odissi Gurus and Performers

Padma Vibushan Kelucharan Mohapatra, Guru Pankaj Charan Das, Guru Deba Prasad Das and Guru Raghunath Dutta were the four major gurus who revived Odissi in the late forties and early fifties. Sanjukta Panigrahi, the great exponent of Odissi, was a leading disciple of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra's and popularized Odissi by performing extensively, both in India and abroad. In the mid-sixties, two other disciples of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, were best known for their performances, both in India and abroad. Shrimati Laximipriya Mohapatra performed a piece of Odissi abhinaya in the Annapurna Theatre in Cuttack in 1948. This is widely upheld as the first ever performance of a classical Odissi dance item after its contemporary revival. Padma Shri Mayadhar Raut also played a major role in giving Odissi dance its classical status. He introduced Mudra Vinyoga in 1955 and Sancharibhava in the Odissi dance items, and presented on stage the enchanting Gita Govinda Ashthapadis, portraying Shringara Rasa. His notable compositions include Pashyati Dishi Dishi and Priya Charu Shile, composed in 1961.

Most of the present day gurus were Gotipua dancers themselves, and have trained dancers and teachers all over India and abroad. In the early fifties, the outside world began to take note of Odissi. Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi and Dr. Susama Tej represented Orissa in the classical dance category at the Inter University Youth Festival, New Delhi, in 1954 and 1955. It was here that Dr. Charles Fabri witnessed their performances, hailed Odissi as a great classical dance form, and helped Indrani Rehman and Sonal Mansingh study it. Sadly, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi left for the US for 16 long years, where she hardly performed, barring a recital or two here and there. She returned to India only in the mid-nineteen seventies, by which time well known dancers had already occupied a permanent and prominent space on the Odissi horizon, and by which time Odissi had evolved considerably. The baton in India was wielded gloriously, and with outstanding success and public acclaim, by Sanjukta Panigrahi, Kumkum Mohanty and Sonal Mansingh, each of whom was a major and distinctive star.

Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pankaj Charan Das, Deba Prasad Das, Raghunath Dutta, Bandana Das, Cuckoo Meena Mohanty, Dr. Nandita Samuel, Kumkum Mohanty, Mayadhar Raut, Minati Misra, Oopali Operajita, Protima Bedi, Ritha Devi, Sanjukta Panigrahi, Sonal Mansingh and Surendranath Jena contributed notably to the propagation of Odissi, starting in the fifties, right up to the eighties and nineties: the golden years of the Odissi renaissance.

Eminent contemporary gurus and performers in alphabetic order include Aloka Kanungo, Alpana Nayak, Anandi Ramachandran, Aruna Mohanty, Bichitrananda Swain, Bijayini Satpathy, Chitralekha Patnaik, Daksha Mashruwala, Dibakar Khuntia, Dipanwita Roy, Dr. Bidisha Mohanty, Durga Charan Ranbir, Gangadhar Pradhan, Gita Mahalik, Harekrishna Behra, Ileana Citaristi, Jhelum Paranjape, Jyoti Rout, Kasturi Pattanaik, Kiran Segal, Kumkum Lal, Madhavi Mudgal, Madhumita Raut, Manoranjan Pradhan, Meera Das, Muralidhar Majhi, Nandita Behera, Natabar Maharana, Oopali Operajita, Poushali Mukherjee, Ramani Ranjan Jena, Ramli Ibrahim, Ranjana Gauhar, Ratikant Mohapatra, Ratna Roy, Sharmila Biswas, Sharmila Mukherjee, Sharon Lowen, Snehaprava Samantaray, Sonal Mansingh, Sri Mahdeva Raut, Srinath Raut, Sujata Mohapatra, Surupa Sen, Sutapa Talukdar, Trinath Maharana and several others around the world.

Some of the upcoming Odissi performers in alphabetic order are Aadya Kaktikar, Anindita Nanda, Arushi Mudgal, Ayona Bhaduri, Bani Ray, Bijay Sahoo, Devraj Patnaik, Ellora Patnaik, Kaustavi Sarkar, Kavita Dwivedi, Lingaraj Pradhan, Madhusmita Mohanty, Masako Ono, Niharika Mohanty, Pabitra Kumar Pradhan, Priyadarshini Roy, Puspita Mishra, Rahul Acharya, Rajashree Chintak Behera, Rajashri Praharaj, Rajika Puri, Ramesh Chandra Jena, Rekha Tandon, Sandhyadipa Kar, Saswat Joshi, Saswati Garai-Ghosh, Shibani Patnaik, Shipra Avantica Mehrotra, Shreelina Ghosh, Sonali Mishra, Sreyashi Dey, Srinwanti Chakrabarti, Swapnokalpa Dasgupta, Vishnu Tattva Das, Yudhistir Nayak, and several others around the world.