DANCE : A Lesson in Indian Movement : Sanjukta Panigrahi will showcase the ‘lyrical’ Odissi style during a lecture and performance at Cal State Fullerton.
Of the five or more major classical Indian dance styles, most of us usually get to see only two: Bharata Natyam, the ancient temple style of the south, and Kathak, the Muslim-influenced rhythmic court style of the north.
Now comes an opportunity to see a third, Odissi, the style of the Orissa state in eastern India. Sanjukta Panigrahi will give a lecture-demonstration of the form today at 7:30 p.m. in the University Center at Cal State University, Fullerton. Admission is free.
The program is being sponsored by the Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth (SPIC-MACAY), an organization founded in India in 1977. A U.S. branch was established in 1990.
The Odissi style is primarily lyrical, Panigrahi said Monday in a phone interview from San Antonio, where she was appearing as part of a U.S. tour.
The main difference between it and the other styles is that Odissi dancers “move in a circle or a semicircular way, never straight as in Bharata Natyam,” she said. For instance, in tribbanga, one of the basic postures, the dancer bends her knees, torso and neck into a figure-eight or S-curved pose.
As do the other Indian dance styles, Odissi traces its origins to temple worship. Temple sculptures and friezes--in this case dating back to the 2nd Century BC--remain as records of the movements.
In the 16th Century, the dances were banished from the temples and brought to the courts. “That’s when corruption of the form started,” Panigrahi said.
Originally done “at the feet of the Lord as an offering, the dances began including praise of the king as well,” she said. As the form became more public and more popular, it grew even more secular. Finally it became “merely entertainment.”
The degeneration accelerated under British rule and the influence of Victorian Christian missionaries, who regarded the dancing as immodest at best and degenerate at worst.
By the end of the 19th Century, the Odissi dancers, along with many of their counterparts in the other styles, had fallen into public disrepute. Many of them became prostitutes and used the dances to entice clients.
The dance styles almost became extinct, surviving only in out-of-the-way places. But through the efforts early this century of poet Rabindranath Tagore and dancer and choreographer Uday Shankar, among others, a countermovement slowly began to revive the national dances.
Even so, when Panigrahi began her studies at age 5, she had to face the objections of her relatives. “My father’s family was all against it,” she said. “At that time, it was considered almost taboo for a girl from an Orissa family to learn dancing. They didn’t think I would be accepted in society or be able to get married and raise a family. But my mother was very courageous. She thought I had talent and must explore it.”
Panigrahi did get married, to Raghunath Panigrahi, a well-known Odissi composer and singer. The two have appeared together in concert since their marriage in 1959, and he will join her in Fullerton.
Sanjukta Panigrahi’s guru was Kelucharan Mohapatra, one of the leading proponents of the style and one of those who helped make the dance revival “a real force” after India achieved independence from British rule, Panigrahi said.
Mohapatra and others turned to “thousands and thousands of temple sculptures,” she said. “We also have traditional paintings and ancient manuscripts. We put all of them together and revived this style and regained what was lost.” In doing so, she noted, they brought Odissi back to its religious roots. “It is again an offering.”
* Sanjukta Panigrahi will demonstrate the Odissi form of Indian dance tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the University Center, Cal State Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Admission is free. (714) 992-5875.