PREETISHA MOHAPATRA, ODISSI PRODIGY
Pedigree counts, especially if you are the grand daughter of the late legendary Odissi Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, and daughter of Sujata and Ratikant Mohapatra—the two most prominent personalities in Odissi dance. Fifteen-year-old Preetisha Mohapatra could be the next big name in Odissi, according to savants of the form. Critics and connoisseurs have showered praise on her after watching her in the last Guru Purnima festival organised at Mumbai by Kaishiki Dance Academy where she opened the dance composition with an invocation, Guru Brahma, followed by her grandfather’s composition Hansadhwani Pallavi. Her concluding item was Jai Mahesh. She debuted as a soloist in 2005 when she had presented her grandfather’s ‘Ganesh Vandana’.
Despite her age, Preeti has more than 50 stage performances in India to her credit. She started dancing when she was four and learnt the initial steps from Kelucharan. She subsequently underwent training under her parents at Srjan, a premier Odissi training institution founded by the Guru in Bhubaneswar. The Bhubaneswar-born student of St Joseph’s High School here, wants to take up Odissi as her career. “Classical dance as a career is a difficult one. Here one does not earn at par with other careers like in engineering or medicine. A dancer’s life has little material gain but the joy and the sense of completeness that dancing brings can never be bartered. Dance integrates all—the body, mind and the soul,” she confides. Step it up, Preeti.
