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On June 25, shimmering silk costumes, bright silver jewelry and expressive faces will bring life and color to the Cubberley Theater stage. The iconic jingle of ankle bells and the haunting melodies of Indian classical music will create a sonic tapestry, while intricate formations and undulating body movements offer a visual feast.
Texas-based Odissi Dance Company (ODC) will present their Kelucharan Guna Keertanam festival in Palo Alto this year, a dance extravaganza paying tribute to one of the creators of Odissi, one of India’s eight classical dance styles, the late Kelucharan Mohapatra (affectionately known as Guruji by his disciples). The festival will feature almost 90 dancers representing four styles of Indian classical dance: Odissi, Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Kuchipudi.
ODC director Aparupa Chatterjee said that Mohapatra’s spirit of creativity, collaboration and innovation that gave birth to today’s Odissi style in the 1940s and 1950s inspired the festival’s performances.
“Our main aim is to collaborate with dancers of the community where we are organizing the festival,” Chatterjee said. “Along with that, we want to bring in young performers to the festival because our ambition is to also see how Odissi and other dance forms have evolved through the younger generations.”
While ODC has hosted this festival annually for over a decade, this year’s 13th edition of the festival will be the first performed in California.
“There are so many beautiful dancers here (in California),” Chatterjee said. “What better way to pay homage to Guruji, because Guruji loved to dance and Guruji loved the art form. What he did was promote Odissi from country to country and state to state outside (the Indian state) Odisha. So we are observing this trend that Guruji followed, and trying to do the same, on a smaller scale, especially because Odissi as a dance form is still not very well known around the United States.”
This year’s festival will feature a plethora of talented solo artists and dance troupes; local dance school Guru Shradha will bring Mohapatra’s signature Odissi style to the Cubberley stage, featuring intricate torso and wrist movements, slow and graceful passages and intricate footwork patterns. Jyoti Kala Mandir, another Bay Area-based Odissi ensemble, will introduce a different style of Odissi to audiences. Odissi, from the eastern Indian state of Odisha, is known for its sculptural postures and lilting upper-body movements, juxtaposed with strong and fast footwork, and both dance groups promise to bring these classic Odissi sensibilities to the stage.
“(We wanted) to also show that style of Odissi, because Odissi has a plurality of styles,” Chatterjee said. “We are celebrating Guruji, but we are also celebrating Odissi, and we wanted to showcase another Guru’s style.”
The festival will also showcase critically acclaimed Odissi soloist Sujata Mohapatra, Vidya Dance Academy and the Chitresh Das Youth Company, founded by Kathak maestro Chitresh Das.
“Guruji had worked in collaboration with Chitresh Das,” Chatterjee said. “They knew each other well, and so something I tried to do through this Guna Keertanam (festival) is to try and bring in all those memories to celebrate Guruji’s impact.”
In addition to the traditional dance presentations that will be featured in the first half of the festival, acclaimed dance director Churchill Pandian will be presenting a thematic production, “Ganga to Kaveri,” in collaboration with ODC and a host of local dance artists. The production describes the natural, mythological and spiritual significance of India’s rivers, beginning with Ganga in the north and eventually concluding with Kaveri in the south.
“The main idea behind the ‘Ganga to Kaveri’ production is national integration, because we are trying to present a story of the entire India and connect it, connect the story of the entire India through the rivers that are flowing in India, which is one of the main sources of unity and nourishment for the country,” ODC Board of Directors member and dancer Yashaswini Raghuram said. “We also try to show this with different classical dance forms. So we are uniting the entire India not only through the rivers, but also through the varied dance forms and the varied cultures represented on stage. … We are standing side by side with our fellow brothers and sisters and making one big family out of the artists, the audience, everyone.”
The production will feature Nirmala Madhava and the Pampa Dance Academy presenting Bharatanatyam and Kathak, Samidha Satyam and the Sanskaar School of Kuchipudi presenting Kuchipudi, Nitya Narasimhan presenting Bharatanatyam and ODC presenting Odissi. Each dance group is set to present a different river corresponding to the geographical roots of the dance style; Ganga, India’s northernmost river will be described through Kathak, a dance form from northern India and Pakistan, while Kaveri, India’s southernmost river, will be shown in the southern Indian dance style Bharatanatyam.
“In this production, we are also interested in bringing in contemporary movement and sensibilities with the choreography,” Chatterjee said. “We are trying to explore the choreographic process through doing this conceptual production.”
Though this production has been staged elsewhere before, this presentation of “Ganga to Kaveri” is unique in its involvement with local dance groups. Chatterjee, Pandian and Raghuram all noted how this innovative, collaborative and community-centered production reflects Mohapatra’s values and spirit. They also emphasized that they hope to introduce audience members to new cultures and stories, while also entertaining them with high-quality dance presentations.
“Our three main purposes with any audience (are to) entertain, educate and enlighten,” Raghuram said. “Nothing comes close to … being a live audience member for a live dance show or music show and being one with all the artists who are performing it. They (audience members) first get entertained, and then they get educated with all the concepts being presented and then finally, enlightened. So in this stress-filled world, we need that, we need thoughtful artistry to ground ourselves and find our balance.”
The soft-spoken Pandian added: “Your festival, and festivals like this, are the solution.”
The Kelucharan Guna Keertanam festival takes place June 25, 3-7 p.m. at the Cubberley Theater, 4120 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Tickets are $35. odissidancecompany.com.
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