Padmavibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra

Among the many gems Orissa has produced in different fields of art through the centuries, one of the latest is certainly the Odissi Dance Guru Padmavibhushan Sri Kelucharan Mohapatra, born on 8th January 1926 at Raghurajpur, Puri. He has been the Guru of practically every contemporary Odissi dancer of note in the past and today. He started learning the Gotipua Nritya and Pakhawaj under the great Gurus, Mohan Sundar Deva Goswami and Pankaj Charan Das at an early age. He performed with a Rasleela troupe before joining the Theatre. 
After Independence, Guruji started working independently to popularize Gotipua Nritya and the Mahari Dance. He received the Sangeet Natak Academy Award and was honoured with Padmashree, Padmabhushan, and Padmavibhushan, besides numerous other awards, accolades and recognition from all over the world. 
Guruji is one of the main architects of the contemporary Odissi repertoire. The creative ability evident in his choreography has evolved through a systematic study of ancient manuscripts and Oriyan Sculptures (especially at the ancient temples in Orissa). Guruji’s style lays equal emphasis on precision and perfection in both tal and laya. 
His sudden demise on 7th April 2004 will remain the biggest loss to the Odissi fraternity. Guruji’s attitude towards dance was, in essence, devotional; to him dance was not so much a vocation as it was an expression of life.

About ODISSI

The origins of all forms of Indian classical dance go back over two millennia and lie in the ancient Hindu texts. The Natya Shastra was regarded as the fifth of the Vedas and provided a definitive statement of all aspects of temple dance. The interpretation of performance and style was open to local influences, culminating in the different dance forms observed throughout India. In the 15th century a major work on the Odissi style was written at one of the royal courts in Orissa.The Abhinaya Chandrika, as it is called, describes all aspects of the performance, costume and music, and remains an inspiration for all Odissi dancers to this day.

If temples are the homes of the gods, then dance is their recreation. There is evidence from Orissa temple sculptures dating back to the 2nd century B.C. that dancers were performing for the pleasure of the gods. The kings who ruled Orissa between the 8th and 11th centuries, provided wealth required to build the temples, and were particularly active in arts. Inscriptions on the Brahmeshwar temple in Bhubaneshwar refers to dancers called devadasis who were consecrated to the worship of the temple god. The Jagannath temple at Puri, was home to a considerable number of dancers and musicians. The maharis, as the dancers were locally known, had a strict regime to follow in performing for the Jagannath deity at particular times of the day and at all auspicious occasions. The single most important temple for Odissi dance is the magnificent Sun Temple at Konarak built in the 13th century. The numbers of dance sculptures presented on the temple walls are considerable and are of fine quality.

The Odissi dance form was kept alive by the male counterparts, known as gotipuas, and it was through them that the dance was revived in the early part of the 20th century. Gurus such as Pankaj Charan Das and Kelucharan Mohapatra, who was himself a gotipua, have faithfully recreated the choreography and technique to pass on the expertise to the contemporary dancers of Odissi.

MANIPURI

• Guru Shrimati Iva Singh 1968 - 75

ABHINAYA

Guru Shrimati Kalanidhi Narayanan (advanced)
Workshops 1993 - 99