Bhubaneswar: The 57th edition of Ekamra Walks, Sunday, which coincided with the auspicious Makar Sankranti festival, kicked off from Mukteswar temple that has been aesthetically bedecked to host annual Mukteswar dance festival.
Four Odissi dancers from abroad – three from Brazil and one from UK – were among the participants at the heritage walker. These danseuses are in the temple city for the Mukteswar dance festival
Katie Ryan, Kali Chandrasegaram and Sanjeevani Dutta, all disciples of Guru Shankar Behera of Mumbai, and Beatriz Ocougne from Brazil, a dance guru herself, took active interest in understanding the temple art, architecture and the sculptures.
Sanjeevani led the team of dancers from the UK and they were to meet their Guru Shankar Behera, while attending the famous dance festival. Overwhelmed at seeing young boys and girls taking active interest in learning about heritage and culture, Sanjeevani praised the effort of local civic and development authorities and Orissa Tourism for organising the heritage walks week after week.
Beatriz Ocougne, a disciple of Delhi based Odissi guru Madhavi Mudgal, is a regular visitor to Orissa. This is her fifth visit to Bhubaneswar. She heaped praises on the organisers for their efforts.
“Ekamra Walks is a beautiful initiative in which not only people from outside, but locals too are taking part. This is a great achievement for the city,” said Beatriz.
Guest Odissi dancers and 14 students from ICICI Academy of Skills hopped ancient structures like Mukteswar, Parasurameswar, Kotitirtheswar, Ananta Vasudev, Lingaraj, Chitrakarini, Sari and Mohini temples, holy Bindusagar tank and the old dharamsala.
Before culminating at Ekamra Vana, a medicinal garden on the bank of Bindusagar tank, the students of Art Vision, established by renowned Odissi dancer from Italy Ileana Citaristientertained the participants with two dance recitals ‘Pallavi’ and ‘Abhinaya’.
PNN