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Photo: Vipin Chandran

Enchanting Ipsita Behoora at a dance recital

“Didi, is this okay”, asks Gori Mishra, another dancer in her troupe, as she shows her the hairdo, a big bun. Ipsita takes one look, pauses and nods her head. It takes two and a half hours to do the make up and get ready for a performance, though taking it all off takes only a few minutes, wiping it off with oil.

Gitanjali Tripathi, a mirror in hand, is oblivious to the world as she does her eyes, even as Snigdha Shika, the youngest member of the Odissi troup come to perform in Kochi that evening, is doing her face. She rushes to Ipsita and gets her to draw a thick line of make up on her nose, in the middle, lighter than the skin tones on the sides of the nose. Explains Ipsita, “See, if your nose is not so sharp, like mine, do this so that from far, the nose will become sharp.”

Gori is rummaging through her bag, looking for her jewellery. “Gori hates to wear jewellery but she knows I will be angry if she does not wear the traditional jewellery needed for Odissi,” says Ipsita, as Gori grimaces. This Delhi girl is a business journalist who is crazy about Odissi. She was a Bharathanatyam dancer whose guru was Yamini Krishnamoorthy, but she switched over to Odissi. Geetanjali is a TV actor too as well as a theatre artiste. Snighda is a special educationist and plans to incorporate dance into her work with special children.

Ipsita is happy that the younger generation is keen to learn traditional arts sincerely. It wasn’t so till a decade ago, when everything Western was thought to be in. Now, when the westerners are going ga ga over our traditional dances and music, our people have realised what we have, Ipsita remarks.

Ipsita , who belongs to Bhubhaneshwar, started learning Odissi at age six and danced on stage when she was 10. But she did not perform much and after her marriage and having a son, it was her husband who encouraged her.

“He is a senior IG of police in Delhi. One day, he saw some old photos of my performance and asked me why don’t I learn Odissi seriously. It was then, five years after marriage that I went to Guruji Kelucharan Mohapatra and started it all over again,” she reminisces. She also studied under the guidance of Samyuktha Panigrahi.

By then she had done her post graduation in Economics, was doing interior designing and also did a course in yoga.

“I incorporate yoga and chau into Odissi, but I do not compromise on its purity and also the traditional dress. It has to be silk, almost always and sometimes cotton.”

Jugalbandis are not a big favourite with Ipsita though she has tried doing it with Kuchipudi. Unless both dancers jell, the different schools clash.

To do her bit to promote the traditional arts, Ipsita has started a group called Samooha Pratidhwani, which has choreographers and dancers whose several productions have been staged all over the world. Most of the members are in it for the love of the arts and are keen to propagate it.

Only if the educated and corporate houses encourage the arts will Indian dance and music remain alive, Ipsita says.

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