The third evening of the International Odishi Dance Festival witnessed some of the promising and established dancers. It featured nine solos, one duet and one group presentation.
Rahul Acharya, a disciple of Guru Durga Charan Ranbir, and a globetrotter Odishi exponent, was the best choice to start the evening. “Yahi Madhava…..” from Geeta Govinda was his presentationthat made the evening enjoyable.
The following artist was Subhadra Varadkar from Mumbai. Her presentation was “Sakhi he…” from Astapadi based on raag Mishra Kafi and taal Triputa. Samiksha Panda, a student of Suhaga Nalini Das of Samprada, Bhubaneswar, gave a wonderful performance “Saraswati”. The piece choreographed by Guru Sarat Das and directed by Suhag Nalini Das was a brief description of Goddess Saraswati. A nice blend of traditional Sahi Jata of Puri drew the attention of the audience.
Next came Pragyan Parimita Das with “Se Shyama chhabi chhataka…”. Here Pragyan gave full justice to the choreography of Guru Ratikanta Mahapatra. Sudipta Ratha from Bhubaneswar presented an abhinaya “Mahana Murati…”. Abhijit Deb from Tripura enthralled the connoisseurs with an all time favorite abhinaya “Pasyati disi disi…” from Geeta Govinda. The only duet of the evening was by Nikita Behera and Janhabi Agarwal. Their presentation was Sankaravarana Pallavi. While Beena Keum from Korea brought an abhinaya “Nachanti Range Shree Hari…”, Sagarika Mahanty, a Bhubaneswar based dancer, came with a nice presentation “Sabdaswara Pallavi”.
The concluding item was a group presentation by the students of Nrutya Sangeeta Kala Mandira, a Baleswar-based institution. With their striking performance on “Radha Rani sange….” they could hold the audience till the last minute.
The afternoon session featured group, duet, solo performances by Darubrahma Dance Academy (Group) from Baleswar, Mallika Mitra (solo) from Cuttack, Rajashree Das (solo) from Bhubaneswar, Gokulsree Dash (solo), Bhubaneswar, Manoranjan Maharana and Swatilipsa Das (duet) from Bhubaneswar, Rajashree Mohapatra (solo) from Bhubaneswar, Kshama Rau (solo) from Chennai and Kavita Mishra (group) from Kolkata.