BHUBANESWAR: In the guise of girls, young boys entertained audience here last week with their acrobatic formations at a two-day Maguni Das Memorial Gotipua dance festival organised by Raghurajpur’s Dasabhuja Gotipua Nrutya Parishad. The dancers, representing the host organisation founded by late Guru Maguni Das besides, Konark Natya Mandap,Odisha Dance Academy, Nilakantheswar Gotipua Gurukul, Aradhana Dance Academy and Naxatra Gurukul, presented different techniques of the dance form as a tribute to Lord Jagannath.
The festival opened with a lecture-demonstration on Gotipua dance, which was presided over by Culture Secretary, Arvind Padhee, former secretary of Odissi Research Centre Ramhari Das, and Vice-Chancellor of Culture University, DN Jena. Basant Pradhan, Gotipua trainer and designer of the festival, said Gotipua is believed to have served as a base for most of the traditional dances in Odisha including Mahari and Odissi. Though visually similar to Odissi, Gotipua is different in terms of technique and presentation. ‘’Mahari and Gotipua co-existed during the same time, but independently with a common cause. They were performed as an offering to Lord Jagannath. But over the years as Mahari started disintegrating, the purpose behind the dance was carried forward through Gotipua with introduction of Bandha Nrutya, which is the presentation of acrobatic postures,” he said.
Later on, boys of Dasabhuja Gotipua Nrutya Parishad performed a ‘Ganesh Vandana’ followed by ‘abhinaya’ on ‘Eka Kunje Kede Sobha’ and ‘Chahan Chahan Bandhu He’ which received applause from the audience. The last item was Bandha Nrutya, a presentation of acrobatic formations. In the true Gotipua style, the abhinaya was performed by one boy and at the end, seven boys worked on forming the ‘Bandha’.
While almost all the troupes performed on Radha Krishna ‘leela’, Nilakantheswar Gotipua Gurukul presented a new choreography ‘Jagarana’ followed by an ‘abhinaya’. The young dancers of Konark Natya Mandap presented ‘Chasi’ on the theme of agriculture and livelihood. Later, dance gurus - Ramchandra Barik, Banambara Swain, Maguni Jena, Bhagirathi Mohapatra, Chintamani Rout, Bhagaban Swain, Bhagirathi Nayak, Laxmidhara Swain, Gobinda Pal - were felicitated by Culture Minister, Ashok Panda, and Panchayati Raj Minister Arun Sahoo, for their contribution towards training Gotipua dancers and keeping the dance form alive. Secretary of Sangeet Natak Akademi, Chitaranjan Mallia was also felicitated.
‘’The festival was an attempt to provide patronage to the age-old dance tradition that has been marginalised due to lack of support from the Government and society,’’ said Panchayati Raj Minister Sahoo, who is also the president of the host organisation.
The institution has been working towards popularising the dance form over the last two decades by training Gotipua dancers.