Anshika Rath and Ananya Bezbaruah,
Arindam Ganguly, OP
Bhubaneswar: Something which is close to a man’s soul is his home. At the end of a day, a person has to come back home and pay obeisance to the motherland. Orissa, which is home to Odissi, hosted the Odissi International festival at Bhanja Kala Mandap where dancers from across the globe are performing to revere their motherland. Many amateur Odissi artistes, who visited Orissa for the first time, are settled abroad because their Indian origin parents are residing overseas due to professional reasons. They were elated to perform at Odissi’s native land.
Some of the first timers are from as far as the US, Ukraine and Sri Lanka. Sagnika Nayak, 11, from Ukraine performed solo on the fifth day of the festival Friday. This was her third performance in Orissa, claimed her mother
Vijay Laxmi Nayak, also an accomplished Odissi danseuse, from Ukraine. She wants her daughter to learn about her homeland where she had learned Odissi. Sagnika, who began learning dance at the age of four, performed Arabhi Pallavi. Her mother had taught her Oriya which helped her understand the nuances of Odissi. Anshika Rath, 10, and Ananya Bezbaruah, 10, from the US had performed at the festival. They staged a duet to the accompaniment of Radha Rani Sange Nache. Ansika learnt Odissi in the US when she was four under the tutelage of Ratna Roy. Her mother Monalisa said she wants her daughter to pursue the dance as an avocation.
Many dancers at the fest were virtually in love with the dance form. Douglas Riding, a yoga teacher at Washington, had learnt a few steps in Odissi from one of his students. That impressed him so much so that he began learning Odissi in 2005. This was his fourth performance at Odissi International.
He said Odissi is a kind of physical discipline wherein he uses acrobatics with dance. Moria Chappel, a dancer from Seattle, USA, first visited Orissa in 2008 and was awestruck with its temples and architecture and decided to learn the dance form about which she had heard a lot. “What impressed me most about Odissi is the spirituality and the association with the Supreme Lord. The other performers who caught the attention are Buddhi Edrisighe of Sri Lanka, a transgender who had performed as a boy in 2016 has danced as a woman this time. Samskritiki director Shyamhari Chakra said 17 performers grouped under Urvashi Ensemble owe their allegiance to mediaeval era dancer Urvashi.
