Odishi: An Ancient Tradition and Culture of Odisha

Posted Date: 10-Nov-2011	Category: Other Place to Visit	Rating:
Author: Biswajit Panda	Member Level: Silver	Points: 25 (Rs 12)

In this article I will explained about Odissi the classical dance of Odisha and its prosperity.How it represents the tradition and culture of Odisha,the sculuptures in the old caves gives the brief idea about its past reputation,the history behind its how it was introduced in the Jagannath temple,the persons who had given a new lease to it by introducing rules and regular practice, what happened to it when outsiders captured Odisha and how the different aspect of Odssi performed.

Odishi: An Ancient Tradition and Culture of Odisha

The culture and tradition of Odisha is also located in its folk dance called Odissi. The classical dance Odissi is one of the oldest dance of India. It's past reputation and popularity are proved in Udayagiri and other old temples as a sculpture. It is also considered as an integrated part of Odisha's own jatra tradition. Now a days it enjoys the tremendous popularity in India as well as out of India.

Originally it was performed by devadasis and maharis of temple, who were totally dedicated and expresses there devotional love through dance. Puri Gajapati Chodagangadev introduced this dance culture in Jagannath temple. Later Gajapati Kapilindradeva regulated the service of Odishi. Padmavatidevi, the daughter in low of Kapilindradeva dedicated herself as a mahari and had played a vital role for the popularity of the Odissi. Her husband Pusushottamdev in 1499 started the culture of Gitagovinda by the dancing girls of Odissi at the Behoga ceremony of Jagannath temple. The writer of Gitagovinda is Jaydev and it is a sanskrit poem describing about the divine love of Radha-Krishna. By introducing a regular and systematical training for devadasis Ramananda Ray a doyen of Indian Renaissance and Prataparudra gave a new lease to Odissi. In 15th century Maheswara Mohapatra had written the code of Abhaya Chandrika which gave an impetus resuscitation. But in16th century when Odisha came under the rule of Bhoi, Pathana, Mogal, Maratha and finally British, dance lost it's independence and devadasis got ceased hence the system started decaying.

The dance programme opens with Mangalacharana, an invocatory piece of dance followed by the shloka in obeisance to Jagannath. Then a pure dance Batunrutya may follow. Palavi, with lyrical,sensuous passage of dance accompanied with bysed song of Sanskrit or oriya is the most graceful item. Apart from this Gitagovinda, Dasavatara stotra of Sri Vishnu and Mokshya Nata at faster rhythim are also one one popular item performed in Odishi.

Now it has tremendous popularity in the world because of the superb representation of varied and extremely difficult aspect of the dance performed by the experts like Guru Kelucharana and his disciples like Sanjukta panigrahi, Rupa Ganguli and Kumkum Mohanty.

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