The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Matching ease with elegance

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Friday, Mar 09, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Matching ease with elegance

Govind Belgaumkar

Most of the present classical Odissi exponents began as Gotipua performers

STRIKING A POSE: Artistes from Orissa performing Gotipua as part of the Oriya Film and Cultural Festival in Bangalore. — Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

BANGALORE: Gotipua requires physical agility of the highest order. The boys dressed as girls who perform the Odissi dance form can stretch their bodies to limits with ease and elegance.

Check this one: They stand behind one another and spread their legs sideways fully till they squat on the ground spread-eagled. Before you figure out how they did it, they will have moved on to another posture that demands more fitness.

For those in Bangalore, Friday is the last day to watch it. It is being performed at the Chowdaiah Memorial Hall here as part of the ongoing three-day Oriya Film and Cultural Festival.

Gotipua dance by a nine-member team from Dasabhuja Gotipua Odishi Nrutya Parisad in Raghurajpur, a heritage village about 150 km from Puri, is clearly the best of the festival. The troupe is trained under Guru Maguni Das, a Padmashree awardee.

It is said that the classical Odissi dance emerged from Gotipua. Most of the present classical Odissi exponents, including Kelucharan Mahapatra, began as Gotipua performers.

Years ago, Gotipuas (the performers) used to sing and perform all night, celebrating the eternal love of Radha-Krishna on occasions such as Dola Utsav or spring festival; Chandan Yatra, the boat-riding ceremony in summer; or Jhulan Yatra or the festival of rain. Only a single Gotipua had to dance. It has slowly evolved into a group form.

Modern times have caught up with it. A team of musicians — a couple of vocalists, a violinist, and those who play cymbals and harmonium and the one who plays the pakhawaj-like instrument called Mardala — supports the Gotipuas on the stage.

Stage-friendly features

It has got other stage-friendly features too: a prayer to God or Guru, Sarigama (pure dance), Abhinaya (the enactment of a song) and Bandha Nrutya (rhythms of acrobatic postures).

When the dance form was vanishing, institutions such as Dasabhuja Gotipua Odishi Nrutya Parisad set up gurukula-like institutions to teach it. Over the last 30 years, it has been revived. So much so that a young member of the team Srimukha Behera (a 6th standard student) says he has gone to places like Delhi and Mumbai with the troupe.

On why only boys dressed as girls alone are allowed to perform, a senior member of the troupe Dusmanta Maharana says that there is a mythological reason for it. When Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, an avatar of Puri Jagannath, came to the Bhargavi River bank, he was missing the grand reception offered to other Gods by girls jovially dancing in celebration. He asks boys to dress up like girls and dance for him. The boys in the gurukula get up at 4 a.m. for a morning practice that lasts till 7 a.m. Then they go to schools., and again practice from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

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