I recently attended a master class in Odissi Indian classical dance taught by Bijayini Satpathy. That’s her, in the photo above, kneeling in front of several of the other students in the class. My novel, India Interlude, contains a scene in which one of the Americans, Diane, attends a performance with her Indian friend, Josh, the man she met at the National Institute of Design. Although Odissi dance wasn’t mentioned specifically, I thought it was an important one for me to learn about.
There are eight recognized classical dance art forms in India, according to Ms. Satpathy. While dance forms had ancient origins, she explained that Odissi dance was revived after Indian independence, in the early 1950s, having been suppressed by the British. It features stylized hand and facial gestures, which we were taught in the class. There are many different hand gestures, or mudras, as well as facial expressions used to convey emotions.
This style originated in the state of Odisha, formerly Orissa, in eastern India. An important component of this art form is its ability to tell stories, and in this class we performed, through a short narrative dance, a story of the famed Indian hero Rama and his wife, Sita, taken from the epic Ramayana. Sita became enchanted by a magical deer, a demon in disguise. While Rama went off to capture the deer for his wife, he left her brother, Lakshmana, to watch over her. When the demon cried out in Rama’s voice, Sita sent Lakshmana to rescue him, leaving her alone. She was subsequently kidnapped by the evil Ravana.