Sneha Mahapatra, a graduating senior from Acton High School, and Arya Mohanty, a High School junior in Winchester had their Odishi Mancha Pravesha event under the instructions from Guru Smt. Jayashree Mohapatra on Saturday, August 12, at the Fine Arts Center Auditorium in Regis College, Weston.  It was a spectacular event of grace, style, footwork and drama.  Cheered by dozens of their classmates and many dance school parents and neighbors, the pair offered a flawless two hour performance segmented with an intermission.  The stage was beautifully decorated with several volunteers helping out in light and sound.  It was an affectionate outpour of community love and blessings on two artistic young initiates.  The iconic deity of Sri Jagannatha graced the stage and was reverentially worshipped through the performance.  He blessed!

After the ceremonial lamp was lit by Arya’s grandmother Smt. Ratnamani Mohanty, the pair began the program with the traditional Odissi Mangalacharana.  Offered to Sri Ganapati and Sri Jagannatha, the pair offered flowers with sonorous vocal melody following them.  The drum beat was soft and the movement was circular and humbling.  After Mangalacharana, the traditional BatuNritya was performed.  Offered to Batuka (the little one) Bhairava, the dance comprises of statue-like poses as carved in the temple exterior in Orissa.  Arya displayed the drummer, the string player and the flute player.  Between the poses, the intricate footwork made the dance interesting.

After Batu, it was time for the graceful exposition of nritta.  Nritta is an Odissi segment where the dance interprets a raga into dance.  The Nritta part is also called Pallavi, where the dancer expresses herself through her style and talents with the beats of the drums and the variation of the melody.  Sneha performed MeghaPallavi, a composition following the raga Megha (rain).  Appropriate to the season, Sneha started with delicate steps and gradually built up tempo to a full stage engagement with fast beats.  The recorded music was well done.  Following Sneha’s came Arya’s Pallavi in raga Shankarabharana.The latter is a Carnataki raga giving Odissi the cosmopolitan color.  The intricate Shankarabharana was melodiously rendered in voice and was gracefully executed with ever increasing tempo.  The full Shankarabharana is the exposition of nature in its entirety.  Arya undertook the task with grace and poise.

Abhinaya is the most expressive part of the Odissi dance.  The classical origin of Odissi is exhibited through the adoption of the complete set of mudras for the hands, legs, heels, neck, eyes and waist.  The dancer has the opportunity to merge with the character he or she plays and tries to create a composite effect of rasa.  I was glad that Guru Jayashree had selected four separate pieces of composition to test the performance style and the learning expertise of her two students.  Their facial expressions and depiction of the lyric in limb movement gained acclamation from the audience.

The first piece on Abhinaya was an Odia lyric, Manini radhikaa mana karana based on Jaydeva’s Geetagovinda.  It was performed as a duet with Sneha as Krishna and Arya as Radha.  Radha is not happy with Krishna because of his apparent frivolous promiscuity and Krishna goes on begging Radha in declaring love.  The piece is always an Odissi hit because of the opportunity of performing of various emotions in quick succession.  The piece ends in a happy note where both reconcile their differences.  The next piece Durga was done by Sneha alone.  Durga is a Shakti concept that enjoins power from all different sources in destroying the evil from the earth.  She rides a lion and carries sharp weapons.  The demon Mahishasura is eventually destroyed.

The next piece Ardhanarishwara was my favorite.   While the concept of the joint appearance of feminine Prakrti and the masculine Purusha is old, the dancing Ardhanarishwara is a peculiar Oriya concept.  The oriya cosmology remained liberal through history declaring the nonsymbolism of eternity.  In the anthropomorphic deity images, the vertical right half is depicted as masculine and the left half is depicted as feminine.  The Shiva in the right half is strong, powerful and energetic; the Shiva in the left half is graceful, soft and motherly.  The dancer depicts the right and left in quick succession by letting the body adjust to the transformation instantaneously.  In a long composition of twenty minutes, Arya moved through the story of Shiva and Parvati, with refrain of NamahShivAyai and NamahShivAya.  She deserved the full house applause.

The next piece was the traditional Dasavatara from the Geetagovinda of Jayadeva.  It is the physical cosmology of evolution spoken in ten steps.  The fish, the tortoise, the boar, the halfman-halflion, Parsurama, the dwarf, the Rama, the Balarama, the Buddha and to be manifest kalki – are enacted depicting a stanza each.  The dancer has the opportunity to show stage acrobatics and intricate footwork.  Sneha performed the piece quite well with devotion and grace.

The final piece was moksha.  Odissi moksha piece can be long and personal.  Guru Jayashree was kind on her students and wrapped up with a single stanza offered to the eternal mother.  The pair had the occasion to create formations and to show response to rhythm with symmetry and harmony.   Gorgeously dressed in the rich traditional Odissi silk with intricate hairdo, the moksha transformed the auditorium to a temple.  The audience offered a standing ovation.

Almost sixty years ago, in 1958, during a massive flood in Cuttack in Odisha, the revered guru Kelucharan Mahapatra had lost his house and was staying with us temporarily.  This writer, then a ten year old, was blessed to be his care-taker.  Eventually he requested the writer to take notes of his drum playing.  He would dictate the bols loudly and I would record his voiced sound.  He used to teach my sister at home and taught many other students in local Kala Vikash Kendra.  In his time of reflection, he would comment, “Would any of these girls maintain the tradition through teaching?”  He would be in his thirties those days, but he had dreams.  Rarely would he have thought that one of the later students would teach the tradition in the far away land of Massachusetts!  I was thinking about those words all evening.

Jayashree Mahapatra’s careful attention to details was noticed in every step.  The students performed to their capacity and enjoyed their work.  Their parents and other siblings greeted them and felicitated them.  Guru Jayashree accepted all admiration with humility, the trademark of the old Kelusir.  I personally went back decades in time.

The event was compered by two former students Ms. Avani Bhavsar and Ms. Nimisha Thakkar.                                 They announced properly and let the program flow punctually.  Sneha’s parents Mr. Asim Mahapatra and Mrs. Sudhira Misra and Arya’s parents Mr. Arun Mohanty and Mrs. Namrata Mohanty thanked all and hosted a hospitality supper for the attendees at the end of the program. 

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