Srjan, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi Nrityabasa organised ‘Upasaranam’, an evening of Odissi dance at Bhubaneswar recently. It presented performances of its young and talented artistes at Rabindra Mandap in Bhubaneswar.
Ratikant Mohapatra, recipient of this year’s SNA Award, was at his creative best. His objective in holding this festival is to discover new talent in Odissi and creating an opportunity for them to perform on a major platform. He is committed towards passing on the rare gifts of traditional art, which his father was instrumental in developing all through his life. Upasaranam, which means moving on the path to excellence, was unique in more than one sense.
Fresh and young artistes of Srjan, wearing Odissi costumes made in attractive Sambalpuri style , presented Mangalacharan. It was set to the primary rhythm of eight-beat structure, worshipping Parvati’s son, Ganesha to start with. The piece was in raga Mishra Shudha Bibhas, which is a pentatonic raga and the rhythm was also a garland woven by different talas. This raga, belonging to Bhairav, is usually sung in day-break. Perhaps, the choreographer particularly chose this piece to signify the beginning of his performance much akin to the beginning of the day. The music was composed by legendary flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, who for sometime in his life was in Cuttack when he was with the All India Radio.
Guru Ratikant Mohapatra used two of the best choreographic works to embellish the evening. One of them was a pure dance piece set to raga Vasant, a spring time raga and tala Ek Tali. The music was composed by Pandit Bhubaneswar Mishra. After all music is an integral part of dance. Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra’s choreographic dance pieces wouldn’t have shone as it did without the inspired music of Pandit Bhuvaneswar Mishra. In fact, both Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Bhubaneswar Mishra have produced great pieces when they were in Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi Research Centre.
Patriotic flavour
The other memorable choreographic work of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra was a nritya abhinaya piece of the patriotic song “Vandemataram” from Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel “Ananda Math”. It was in raga Desh, a monsoon raga generally used in patriotic songs. Young dancers broke into myriads of visually spectacular designs much to the liking of the audience. ‘Mahadev’, set to Rag-Raag Malika and Tala - Tala Malika, was a piece which was only one of its kind. The presentation of the Pallavi set to raga Raga-Megh, Tala-Jhampa, music by Pradeep Kumar Das and dance choreographed by Ratikanta Mohapatra caused unbound rasa in the hearts of the audience.
