Into its second annual edition, the Nrutya Naibedya Odissi Utsav being hosted in the land of Odissi by three fabulous male Odissi dancers of Odisha – Pravat Kumar Swain, Pankaj Kumar Pradhan and Lingaraj Pradhan – has emerged as major platform for emerging and budding Odissi soloists. Aptly titled Nrutya-Naibedya,the festival has been a humble offering of dance for connoisseurs. The three-day festival staged at Bhanja Kala Mandap cultural complex in Bhubaneswar recently, presented nearly 100 solo dancers. While the morning sessions were akin to a talent search for the budding below 20 years of age (a jury of Odissi gurusselected the winners of Nrutya Naibedya Odissi Prativa Puraskar), the later sessions featured young dancers below 30 years of age .
While a majority of the 25 soloists were from Odisha, seven of them were from Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi and Karnataka.
Highlights
The crowd puller of the festival was Preetisha Mohapatra, the granddaughter of maestro Kelucharan Mohapatra and daughter-disciple of gurus Ratikant and Sujata Mohapatra. The teenager, the youngest among the invites, lived up to her reputation of being “a born dancer” as she performed the pure dance number Suddhadaibat pallabi with complete command over her body and the stage as well.
However, the ‘find of the festival’ this year was Puspa Panda of Gunjan Dance Academy at Cuttack, and disciple of internationally acclaimed dancer Meera Das, whose subtle execution of the khandita nayika in poet Jayadev’s touching astapadi Yahi Madhav-Yahi Keshav was the most mature. The young girl has an amazing ability in expressional aspects of dance.
Delhi-based Odissi exponent Ranjana Gauhar’s disciple Vrinda Chadha has an arresting stage presence and has got a spark in her dance. Her presentation was a befitting tribute to her Guru’s Guru Mayadhar Raut who is the lone living member from among the founder-fathers of Odissi today. Though from Odisha, the great guru’s legacy is hardly remembered in Odisha.
Though just two years old into Odissi, Bengaluru’s Sahana Raghavendra Maiya, trained under Madhulita Mohapatra at the famed Nrityantar Academy of performing Arts in her city, gave glimpses of her firm grooming and bright future. Her presentation of choreographies by Meera Das (Birachita Chatubachana) and Ratikant Mohapatra (Jaya Mahesh) proved her potential both in pure and expressional aspects of dancing.
Bengal’s Odissi was represented by four well-groomed dancers who have the potential to be solo dancers with their individual signatures – Sulagna Ray from Kolkata and Ritu Sengupta, Susmita Roy and Moon Dey (all from Jalpaiguri). While Ritu is trained at city-based Srjan Odissi institute under Guru Ratikant Mohapatra and Sulagna under Guru Poushali Mukherjee in Kolkata; Susmita and Ritu are under acclaimed trainer Pompi Paul in North Bengal towns of Siliguri-jalpaiguri.
Mitali Varadkar, who represented Maharashtra, delighted with her presentations of choreographies of her guru Shubhada Varadkar.
Well-known Odissi institutes of Bhubaneswar were represented in the festival through their promising solo dancers – Arupa Gayatri Panda (Odisha Dance Academy); Sudeshna Mohanty and Manisa Manaswini (Debadasi Odissi Academy); Bharati Mishra (Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Odissi Research Centre), Subhalaxmi Padhi (UDRA); Bidyutprava Mohanty and Madhusmita Swain (both from host Nrutya Naibedya Gurukul) apart from duet dancers Mousumi and Upasana from Art Vision.
Male marvel
The festival, hosted by the three popular male Odissi dancers, logically showcased seven male dancers that gave glimpses of the rise of several marvellous male dancers. Among them were Harekrushna Dhal from the state-owned Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyala; Rajesh Kumar Palai and Pratap Bariki from
Guru Aruna Mohanty’s Odisha Dance Academy; Sanjeev Kumar Jena from Rudrakshya Foundation of Guru Bichitrananda Swain; Gouri Sankar Tripathy from Mokshya Odissi institute of Guru Sujata Mishra; Nirmal Kumar Swain of Utkal University of Culture and Bibhudutta Das of Saswat Joshi’s Lasyakala dance centre – all based in Bhubaneswar.
Of the 75 budding dancers who came under the talent search test, 40 were awarded the Nrutya Naibedya Odissi Prativa Puraskar for their impressive performance as budding soloists.
