Madhulita Mahapatra with her Nrityantar dance group
Odissi dancer Madhulita Mahapatra admits that she came to Odissi late compared to other classical dancers, who start at an early age. “I was 19 years old when I got the chance to learn Odissi. I had seen Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Sanjukta Panigrahi on television and I always wanted to learn it,” Madhulita says over the phone from Bengaluru, where she lives.
The reason he could not do so was that there were no Odissi teachers in his hometown Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district of Odisha. However he learned Sambalpuri folk dance. Upon reaching Bhubaneswar for her college education, she got the opportunity to learn under gurus like Padma Shri Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, Padma Shri Aruna Mohanty and Pabitra Kumar Pradhan. “There’s no looking back since then!” says the dancer, who will be performing at the Changampuzha Park in Edappally, as part of the Nritholasavam of Changampuzha Maholasavam. He last performed in Kochi in 2019.
Madhulita is not new to Kochi, she has been conducting workshops at Sporty Beans, Odissi in Tripunithura. She comes every two months for offline classes for her students. “I am trying to popularize the dance form in Kerala, and I have a few students. Not as many as I would like and I think that’s because there isn’t as much awareness of the form. I hope to create awareness about Odissi dance through my classes and performances,” she says.
Although it is very different from Mohiniyattam, Madhulita, 44, says both are extremely feminine forms.
Upon moving to Bengaluru in 2009, he started teaching along with just a few children from his neighbourhood. “It has grown and now I have an Odissi dance school, Nrityantar which has 300 students. I have almost over 1000 online students from all over the world,” says the recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Bismillah Khan Youth Award in 2018.
Madhulita will perform Colors of Krishna with her students from the Nrityanthar dance group at Changampuzha Maholasavam, in which the dancers will “display various ‘roles’ of Krishna through dance – as a beloved child, a son, brother, savior. Destroyer of evil… It will depict episodes from Krishna’s life – his escape with the Gopis, destroying Kaliya Naga, killing Kansa etc. Anecdotes.”
Madhulita Mohapatra will perform at Changampuzha Maholasavam (Changampuzha Park) on December 8, 6 pm.
published – December 06, 2024 10:29 am IST
