Odissi dancer Madhulita Mohapatra wants to popularize the dance form in Kerala

Madhulita Mohapatra with her Nrityantar Dance Ensemble

Odissi dancer Madhulita Mohapatra admits that she came to Odissi late compared to other classical dancers who started at a young age. “I was 19 years old when I got the chance to learn Odissi. I had watched Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra and Sanjukta Panigrahi on television and I always wanted to read them,” said Madhulita on the phone from Bengaluru where she is based.

The reason he could not was that there were no Odissi teachers in his home town of Bhawanipatna in Odisha’s Kalahandi district. However he learned traditional Sambalpuri dance. When he came to Bhubaneswar for his college education, he got his chance, he studied under gurus like Padma Shri Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, Padma Shri Aruna Mohanty and Pabitra Kumar Pradhan. “There has been no looking back since then!” said the dancer who will perform at Changampuzha Park, Edappally, as part of Changampuzha Maholsavam song called Nritholsavam. He last performed in Kochi in 2019.

Madhulita is not new to Kochi, she has been running Odissi workshops at Sporty Beans, Tripunithura. He comes every few months to give offline lessons to his students. “I am trying to popularize the dance form in Kerala, and I have a few students. There aren’t as many as I would like and I think it’s because there isn’t a lot of awareness about the form. I hope to spread awareness about Odissi dance through my classes and performances,” she said.

Although it is very different from Mohiniyattam, Madhulita, 44, says both are extremely feminine genres.

When she moved to Bengaluru in 2009, she started teaching with a few of her classmates. “It has grown and now I have an Odissi dance school, Nrityantar for 300 students. I have around 1000 readers and online followers from all over the world,” says the 2018 Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar recipient.

Madhulita will sing Colors of Krishna, with her Nrityantar Dance Ensemble students, at the Changampuzha Maholsavam, where the dancers will “demonstrate through dance the various ‘roles’ of Krishna – as beloved child, son, brother, savior, destroyer of evil… It will depict episodes of Krishna’s life – escape his and the gopis, destroying Kaliya, the serpent, killing Kamsa among other stories.”

Madhulita Mohapatra will perform at Changampuzha Maholsavam (Changampuzha Park) on December 8, 6pm.