Simran Dillip, disciple of Guru Smt. Jayashree Mohapatra of Noopur Dance Academy, and daughter of Priya and Dillip Behera presented her Odissi Mancha Prabesh at Exeter High School on Aug 24, 2019.
Simran’s perfect posture, tremendous stamina, strong footwork, evocative facial expressions and a great stage presence were the striking aspects of her Mancha Prabesh performance. Overall it captured the spirit of beauty, devotion and art that enthralled more than 300 audience present in the auditorium.
Simran started learning dance from an early age. She has participated in many competitions and cultural events around New England. Simran is going to be a sophomore this year at St. Thomas Aquinas high school in Dover, NH. Other than dance she is an active member at several clubs in her school, helping international kids and local community. Her hobbies are reading, writing, and listening to music.
Odissi is an Indian classical dance form from eastern India—the state of Odisha. Odissi dance is an artistic discipline of high order which embodies one’s devotion to God and the opening of one’s heart to the beauty and joy, expressed through the highly stylistic and graceful gestures of body.
The Mancha Prabesh is performed after several years dedication to Odissi, students receive the honor to perform in a Mancha Prabesh as and when approved by the teacher. Over many months and multiple weekly and daily practices Simran was ready to perform in Mancha Prabesh with the blessing of Guru Jayashree Mohapatra. Guru Smt. Jayashree Mohapatra is a very renowned Odissi dancer, choreographer and teacher in USA and Canada. She achieved as an accomplished dancer acquired “Nritya Bhusan†master’s degree in Odissi dance and also received fellowship from “Central Sangeet Natak Academyâ€.
In the Mancha Prabesh, the Odissi dance graduation ceremony, Simran demonstrated the various classical Odissi dancing skills through complexities of her eight dances. Simran started with the invocatory item Managalacharan, in which the dancer started with "Pushpanjali" flower offering to Lord Jagannath, followed by "Bhumi Pranam" salutations to Mother earth to seek her forgiveness and blessings and concluded with "Tri Pranam" or the threefold salutations. The dance was on a Vishnu Vandana called “Shantakaram Bhujaga Sayanamâ€.
Then followed by Battu Nrutya, a form of pure dance. She beautifully depicted the body movements and postures replicating many poses from the temple sculpture and playing musical instruments.
Next, Simran impressed the audience with the elaboration through her body postures, eye movements and intricate foot work in the dance Desh Pallavi and offered Prayer to Guru in Guru Brahma bringing in a somber mood of devotion.
After the intermission, there was a short video on the dance journey of Simran from childhood until this stage. That also captured the recent dance with Guru Shri Shaswat Joshi.
Then Simran captured the essence of sweet and joyful rainy season in Megha Pallavi and moved to Abhinya “Saja Kanjaâ€. 'Abhinaya' is an expressional dance where mudras, hand gestures, facial expressions and body language are used as tools to emote, describe and tell a story. Simran delighted audiences with her expression in this dance the way she was calling Krishna to play his flute and would leave everything to dance around him.
Then Simran transformed into a high tempo mode depicting Shiva in “Nagendra Haraya†and finally concluded with Mokshya, seeking harmony and well-being for all mankind and total surrender to God.
The program was witnessed by Simran’s grandparents from India, many family members and friends from different part of the country and New England. Many of the family members couldn’t make to the program but their video messages were flowing. The appreciation and congratulations showed all the hard work Simran had put and the planning went to execute this so successfully.
Dillip and family member expressed sincere thanks and gratitude to the audiences and Guru Smt. Jayashree Mohapatra. Simran was extremely thankful to her Guru, for dedication, support and believing in her during the years of learning and to Mancha Prabesh.
On the same day Simran also celebrated her 15th Birthday with friends and families with special designed stage and nicely decorated cake.
The guests were very impressed with planning and execution, beautiful venue, nice decorations. The beautiful Ganesh decorations at the entrance, amazing photobooth and elegant cafeteria was decorated by Synergy Events (Sanjeeb Swain, Julie Swain and Prabhudutta Mohanty). The gorgeous Lord Jagannath and the Podium was beautifully decorated by Sharmista Padhi and Nibedita Padhi. The thrilling light & sound was managed and handled Saroj Panigrahi, Sanjeeb Swain, Venkat Pdala and Arun Mohanty. Delicious food was provided by Mayuri Acton. Photography was done by Naga Gandham, Video was by Srivatsan Chetlur. The amazing flyers and life size posters were created by Sanjay Debata from Dhenkal, Odisha. This program was supported by many friend and volunteer, a special thanks to Madhu Gokula for being integral part of the planning and arrangement.
The program was emceed by Julie Swain, Nishikanta Bhadra, Murali Atuluri, Mona Senapati, Uma Rao and Mansi Saksena. They did a wonderful job to keep audiences engaged and ran the program flawlessly.
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