Odissi icon remembered
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The husband-wife duo have turned into excellent performers with great coordination and stage presence.
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Veteran artistes were felicitated during the Guru Pankaj Charan Utsav.
BORN INTO a family of "Maharis", the temple dancers at the temple of Lord Jagannath of Puri, for Pankaj Charan Das, who learnt dance from his aunt, Ratna Prabha Mahari, the onus of establishing Odissi as a modern classical dance form fell on his frail shoulders and he rose to the occasion in an exemplary manner.
A founding father of Odissi, Charan brought the dance out of the temple sanctum and became "adi guru" honing the talents of innumerable disciples who eventually became gurus and dancers torchbearers of Odissi across the globe.
Charan became synonymous with Odissi dance as the revered guru firmly rooted in the dance's pristine idiom fashioned a repertoire that charmed the common man and the connoisseur alike with its form and content.
Guru Pankaj Charan Odissi Research Foundation has been organising the decade-old festival of dance in honour of the "adi guru"' and presenting the "Mahari" award annually to an outstanding Odissi dancer .
Deserving felicitations
This year the 11th "Mahari" award presentation as part of Guru Pankaj Utsav 2005 was organised by the foundation on March 17 as a tribute to the late guru on his 86th birth anniversary.
Veteran artistes like Laxmipriya Mohapatra, the wife of the late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, who was the first dancer to present Odissi on stage thus inspiring many other girls to take to Odissi and Ritha Devi, an outstanding exponent of "Mahari" dance, both disciples of Charan, were felicitated on the occasion.
The "Mahari" award was presented to Mumbai-based Odissi dancer, Jhelum Paranjape, the first dancer from outside Orissa to win this coveted award.
The festival always deserves kudos for providing a forum to young Odissi dancers to perform solo. This year too, Sanhcita Banerjee, Padmini Rout, Rajib Bhattacharya and Sikha Patnaik gave recitals on the first day while Sanghamitra Singh, Janhabi Behera and Aitreyei Mazumdar performed on the concluding day, of the two-day festival. Paranjape gave a facile demonstration of Odissi dance.
Riveting show
The bi-monthly concert for classical music and dance `Asara' being organised by premier cultural organisation "Sanskruti O Sanskruti" featured Odissi music and dance at its latest chapter.
The first to take the stage were the artistes of Jayadeva Sangeet Academy who presented a riveting "Raga Manjari" with seven singers . Guru Bhagirathi Nayak and Manjushree Nayak took the lead with Guru Umesh Chandra Kar was on the tabla and Ramesh Chandra Das on the violin.
"Raga Manjari" is a composition of ragas like Kedar, Basant, Bageshree, Kirwani, Bhairavi and Kalyan taken from both Hindustani and Odissi styles. The lyrics from eminent traditional Oriya poets are adapted to a classical format and the result apart from being pleasing to the ears helps to popularise classical music.
The second item of the evening was a scintillating Odissi dance recital by Ramesh Chandra Jena and Madhusmita Mohanty.
Trained under Guru Gangadhar Pradhan and Guru Bichitrananda Swain the husband-wife duo have been shaping up to be excellent performers with great coordination and stage presence. Madhusmita who is getting her skills honed by well-known dancer Aruna Mohanty, is developing into an exciting solo prospect.
Her languid grace, flawless and neat execution of steps and "mudras" and her mimetic intensity stand her in good stead both in pure dance and "abhinaya."
Her "Ashta Nayika" as well as the duet dance, a paean to Lord Shiva were outstanding efforts with Jena's vigour acting as a perfect foil to Madhusmita's lyrical grace.
Bibuthi Mishra
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