Toshali Sands

Orissa Culture: Odissi Dance

Dance - the art of movement. Since time immemorial dance is a part of human life. When a child is born he crises and do movement - that where we can say he bears the art of movement.

Orissa the land of art, culture and tradition, Gifted with lots of dance forms, music, traditions and crafts. In India we category dance into classical and folk dance. At present the seven form of classical dance are Bhatnayam of Tamil Nadu, Kuchhipudhi of Andhra Pradesh, Khatak of Uttar Pradesh, Manipuri of Manipur, Mohaniattam and Katakali of Kerala and Odissi of Orissa.

Of all classical dance form Odissi is the youngest. You may say it has the entire specialty that makes it the best. In her budding stage it has acclaim she a huge praise and fame, all over India and abroad.

In Odissia the torso movement is consider important. The Odissi movement is soft, lyrical and graceful. The basic body position is chowka which is supposed to be replica of Lord Jagnnath body position. The dance evolved from devdais or Mahari Nritya and Goitipa. It has it mention in Bharat Natya Shastra as ‘Odramagadhi’ are of the ancient name of Orissa other than Kalinga, Tosali, Utkal. The five department of Odissi are Mangalacharan, Sthai or Batu. Pallavi, Abhinaya and Moksha. Odissi has its own style and music.

Late Debprasad, Guru Pankajcharan, Guru Kelucharna, late Sanjukta Panigrahi, Kumkum Mohanty, Indrani Rehema etc. are the persons who gave Odissi its life and charm. Other namis attach to odissi dance are Guru Nabakishore, Guru Gangadhar, Guru Ranbir, Guru Subrat Pattaniak, Illena etc.

As in every classical dance form, in Odissi too Guru Shisya tradition prevalent. It takes fine to seven year to get trained in this style but as Guru says a whole life dedication also seems to be less to master the form completely.