BHUBANESWAR: The heritage Hall of Ravenshaw University at Cuttack, on Monday, witnessed an exclusive evening of Odissi dance by Cuttack-based Gunjan Dance Academy led by its founder-director Meera Das. Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) that hosted the show as part of its monthly concert series Horizon offered the students’ fraternity of the University glimpses of Orissa’s heritage – Odissi – that has also been Orissa’s global identity today.
A distinguished disciple of late legendary Kelucharan Mohapatra, Meera commenced her concert with a Kelucharan composition – Kekikantha – as the customary invocation (mangalacharan) for Lord Ram. Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi scored the music for this classic composition that the dancer staged as a soloist.
Moving on, Meera along with her disciples Malabika, Lopamudra, Puspa and Priyanka presented a pure dance number – pallabi – set to raag Bilahari choreographed by her guru and music composed by legendary Bhubaneswar Mishra. Dasavatara, Gunjan’s next presentation exhibiting the ten incarnations of the Hindu god of Vishnu, was also choreographed by Kelucharan but as a solo dance number. Meera successfully adapted it to a group presentation.
After presentation of three compositions of her guru, Meera staged two of her recent choreographic works in group format – Sakti Mantra and Nrutta. While the former came under the category of mokshya – Odissi repertoire’s concluding segment – Nrutta was a pure dance number demonstrating the sculptural stances of the dance form.
mshyamharichakra@gmail.com
