Either you choose the path of your destiny or destiny chooses you but in the end, it’s what you do with your decisions that matters. Take danseuse Meera Das. Sensing her interest in performing arts from a very young age, her father had decided early on that his daughter would become a dancer. Das took her first baby steps into the limelight at the age of four with a folk dance performance at her school in Anandapur in Odisha’s Keonjhar district. Twenty-six years later, she is still living her father’s dream — now her dream, she says — as an established name in Odissi.
As a child artiste, she excelled in Bandha Nrutya — a folk dance form involving acrobatic movements — under the tutelage of Guru Gangadhar Nayak. “My father had urged the guru to teach me classical dance and he used to travel from Cuttack to Anandapur once a week to teach me. I also used to travel to Cuttack and Bhubaneswar frequently with my father to witness classical dance shows. It was during one such show when I got to witness the legendary Sanjukta Panigrahi perform. This is where I realised that I wanted to learn Odissi,” she recalls.
Later, during her college days in Bhubaneswar she joined the first batch of Odissi Research Centre (ORC). “My initial days at the ORC were not easy with my guru — Padma Bhusan Kelucharan Mohapatra — not noticing me as my Odissi moves weren’t as graceful as others and my dance style was different. This was because I was trained in Bandha, the acrobatic dance form. But I must say the body flexibility that I have today is because of Bandha and it helped me in adapting quickly to Odissi,” she says.
With days of practice and dedication, Das was able to overcome her flaws and her intrinsic talents flourished under Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Guru Gangadhar Pradhan. Soon Das joined the chosen few of the Odissi repertoire company of the ORC to perform in prestigious programmes. Today, she is a distinguished name in the reference panel of artistes of Indian Council for Cultural Relations and also as a dance executive of the ORC.
She has several new choreographies to her credit that include Nrutta, Desh Pallavi, Rainbow, Meghambari and Ahalya. Her latest choreography Krishna Kathamruta is a narrative dance piece on the life of Sri Krishna. For these innovations and authentic rendering of the dance form, Das has been receiving rare reviews from discerning critics and admiration from audiences worldwide. “My gurus have influenced my sensibilities as a dancer, teacher and choreographer. Both the gurus believed in innovation and I follow their path while attempting new compositions,” she says.
Das, who has got numerous awards like the ‘Dancer of Young Generation’ by the Orissa Dance Academy, Mahari Award by ORC, Nritya Samman to name a few, is also imparting advanced level training to groups of students through her 16-year-old Gunjan Dance Academy in Cuttack. The academy has gained the distinction of performing in 32 countries, and Das has given solo performances in as many as 70 countries. She also hosts the Gunjan Dance Festival at Cuttack every year.
