Continuing with its monthly ‘Meet-The-Artist’ series, city-based Jatin Das Centre of Art (JDCA) offered a presentation on “Temple sculpture and Odishi dance” by veteran danseuse Aruna Mohanty at the JDCA premises here on Saturday.
A Central Sangeet Natak Akademi and Padma Shri award-winner, Aruna Mohanty heads the Odisha Dance Academy, the world’s biggest Odishi institute with the largest number of teachers and students in Bhubaneswar. She is known for her artistic and intellectual productions, both in tradition and innovation.
“It is yet to be established whether dance came first and dance sculptures next or vice-versa,” she stated as she set the discussion with demonstration in motion. literature, sculpture and fine art bear volumes of reference to the long-drawn history of Odishi dance, she elaborated and pointed out that there must have been some amazing dance form in ancient Odisha that must have been provoked and inspired by the sculptors to put the frozen frames of such dancers on the temple walls.
Exhibiting excerpts from the popular choreographies by founder fathers of Odishi like Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra besides referring to the works of pioneers like Guru Pankaj Charan Das, Guru Debaprasad Das, legendary Sanjukta Panigrahi and her (Aruna Mohanty’s) Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, she drew exquisite parallels between the temple sculptures and dance postures that the audience comes across in Odishi. The unique use of hand gestures, body postures and facial expressions, exclusive to Odishi dance, were also demonstrated.
With her team of established co-artistes, her disciples Madhusmita Swain and Biswajit Das for demonstration of dance and Bijay Kumar Barik on mardal, Harapriya Swain for vocal recital and Agnimitra Behera on violin, the session, now in its 210th edition, came lively. It was attended by a number of eminent people from the fields of art, culture and literature.