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Honour to be conferred on legendary guru’s better half

BHUBANESWAR: One of the first generation Odissi dancers and wife of legendary guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Laxmipriya Mohapatra would be conferred the Adi Guru Pankaj Charan Das award, while veteran Indian classical dancer, scholar and critic Ritha Devi would be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement award during the inauguration of the three-day festival of dance and music commencing in the State capital on Tuesday.

Festival coordinator and co-founder of the organisation, hosting the event, Guru Pankaj Udra Sanskruti Academy Basant Das told The Hindu that the festival was launched last year as a tribute to his late father and the ‘guru of all gurus’ in Odissi dance Padma Shri Pankaj Charan Das.

He was the guru of Kelucharan Mohapatra and Laxmipriya Mohapatra, he said and added Laxmipriya was the unanimous choice of the jury for the award, instituted in his memory.

Similarly, Ritha Devi, professor of dance at the New York University and now based in Pune, was the foremost disciple of Pankaj Charan. The three-day event, to be mounted at Jayadev Bhawan in association with the Eastern Zonal Cultural centre, Kolkata and eight prominent dance institution of the State, would feature Odissi dancers Jyoti Rot from USA, Kaori Naka (Japan), Vani Madhav (Bangalore), Rajnita Banarjee (Kolkata), Madhusmita Mohanty, Arati Kar, Debasis Patnaik, Puspita Mishra, Sagnya Sucharita Nayak, Pallavi Das, Rojalin Srichandan, Trilochan Sahoo, Dusmanta Swain, Pratyasa Mohanty and Nirojlaxmi Baral (all from Bhubaneswar) besides Isha Satpathy from Cuttack. Physically challenged Odissi artiste Nityananda Das, who can dance with only one leg, will also perform in the festival. The ritual Mahari dance of Puri and the highly acrobatic Gotipua dance would also be performed, Mr. Das stated.

Music segment, both vocal and instrumental, would be represented by traditional Odissi singer Gopinath Tripathy of Balakati and a group recital on percussion instruments of tabla, khol and mardal by Madhusudan Barman, Gopal Barman and Sachidananda Das respectively.

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