POST NEWS NETWORK
Bhubaneswar, Sept 6: The 23rd OMC Guru Kelu Charan Mohapatra Award Festival was held with great enthusiasm and excitement among the art connoisseurs thronging the Rabindra Mandap in the last two nights, with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as the chief guest. The festival’s objective of organising the festival was to give the Odisha audience an exposure to the classical fare of the highest order, to sensitize the captive audiences, especially the younger generation students, so that an “enthusiasm for the subtle flavours of classicism is planted in them.” Chief Minister Patnaik said, “We must remember Guru Keucharan Moahapatra and also hail his contributions to the growth of Odissi.”
The first presentation at the inaugural evening Tuesday was Ekatatwa. Ekatatwa is an endevour wherein art and artists unite in the pursuit of the Supreme Bliss. It’s about celebrating the use of the body through all its movements to reach beyond the plane of the mundane, in search of a higher existence. Ekatatwa is a common principle of presentation that strings together three dancers with three choreogrpahers — ie Daksha Mashruwala, Uma Dogra and Vaibhav Arekar — and three classical dance styles –Odissi, Kathak and Bharatnatyam. The music director for the presentation was Manoj Desai. The presentation by the dancers-cumchoreogrpahers was marked by fluid grace and immaculate body movements, with amazing precision and charming gestures and pos
tures. On the occasion, Uma Dogra said, “Performing at the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Award 2017 is a splendid experience for me. Daksha Mashruwala said she had performed many a time for this annual festival and award show
and “every time I tried to do something different.” Vaibhav said that, in Orissa, people still admired traditional and classical dance forms which inspired artists like him to perform here regularly. The second presentation of the
evening was instrumental Jugalbandi of Flute play by Annada Prasanna Pattanaik and Veena play by Puspa Kashinath. Annada Prasanna Pattanaik (Popularly known as Butto), his experimental flute playing, that included going to a higher octave by playing of various Indian classical ragas, won wide applause. On the second day, Bharatnatyam dancer Navia Natarajan presented a dance performance. she had started dancing at age three. Navia presented two recitals including ‘Parashakti’ and ‘Varnam’ with an innate sense of rhythm and a vibrant sense of expression that indeed mesmerized the packed audience. Parashakti, the classical dance piece, is an ode to the Devi, the feminine principle of creation or Shakti that courses through the cosmos. Through her evocative movements
and choreography, Navia uncovers the many faces of the divine goddess, compassionate and fierce, all-loving and wrathful. “The recital is based on two aspects — Fear and compassion. It also presents the battle between the good and the evil as an internal one, as the eternal dance of light and darkness that goes on within each of us,” said Navia. It is Navia’s second visit to Orissa and she claimed that the people of Orissa are so much fascinated by this classical dance form. The dancer noted that she had been appreciated and admired for her past performances in Orissa. After that, tabla player Ojas Adhiya, who had created a record as the youngest tabla player in 1993, performed for the audience. Ojas Adhiya said Tabla had attracted him from his childhood. “You can say I was born to play the tabla