About

ODISSI CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

September 26-29 2024

10 am - 12 pm EST/ 7 am-9 am PST / 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm IST

Thursday, September 26

Moderator: Leia Devadason

Bio: Leia is a writer, composer, and dance-learner from Singapore. As a PhD student in Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, Leia works on queer performance, relationships between politics and aesthetics, and Indian classical dance. In addition to dancing and writing about Odissi, she was a dramaturg for Devotions (2022), a project which combined the storytelling traditions of abhinaya and Western oratorio music, and most recently, directed and composed her own dance film Jani (2024) under the Bay Area-based Voices of Bhakti artist fellowship.

Speakers:

Sandra Chatterjee

Topic: Sister by Dance: Encountering Odissi in Response to Today

Bio: Dr. Sandra Chatterjee is a choreographer and scholar (Culture & Performance/Dance Studies). She is interested in direct exchange and wants to involve senses less considered in dance (e. g. smells and their political dimensions). Sandra was initially trained in the classical Indian dance form Kuchipudi, but she has always had a love for Odissi. In addition to Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam she has been training in Odissi since 2010. She is a founding member of the Post Natyam Collective; and co-organiser of the platform CHAKKARs – Moving Interventions. sandrachatterjee.net, chakkars.de

Raka Maitra

Topic: The Migration of Form

Bio: Raka Maitra is a dancer and choreographer who defies the conventional dichotomy of 'classical' and 'contemporary'. She is a dancer simpliciter; exploring through her work the notion of 'Asian Culture' through her own language of contemporary dance. The basis of her movement is both the martial arts and classical Indian dance. Trained in both classical Odissi and Chhaua. Raka was an associate artist with The Substation, from 2007-2011 and co-artistic director from 2020-2021.

Maitra founded Chowk Productions in 2014 after being awarded the Seed Grant by the National Arts Council. Her noteworthy productions include: The Hungry Stones (2011), Circular Ruins (2012), Khayyams Rubaiyat(2013), The Blind Age(2014), The Second Sunrise (2016), from: The Platform (2017), The Pallavi Series(2016-2021), Variations on a Theme (2021), These Brief Encounters (2021), Yahi (2022). In a collaboration with Birbhum Theatre Cottage, she created a work with the Santhal tribal community in the region in 2022.

Her works have been regularly commissioned by The Esplanade, Singapore and have travelled extensively abroad, including- The centenary celebration of Visva Bharati university Santiniketan, Melkweg in Amsterdam, Les Hivernales in Avignon, 10 days in the island at Tasmania and the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C.

Kedar Mishra

Topic: The Making of Odissi: A View From Below

Bio: Kedar Mishra writes poetry in Odia. Born in Sonepur on 15th April 1972. He is also known as an editor, translator, journalist, scholar, art critic, human rights worker and cultural activist. He has published six poetry collections in Odia, two collections of prose, and three books in English. His works are widely translated into English, German, Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Malayalam, Nepali and Irish languages. For poetry he has been awarded many prestigious honours; a brief list includes the Ankur Puraskar, Panos South Asia Media Fellowship, Sanskrutimitra Samman, Guru Gangadhar Samman, and Bhubaneshwar Behera Literary Award, among many others. Presently he works as a journalist and resides in Bhubaneswar. His pathbreaking media analysis on Kandhamal violence in Odisha was highly acclaimed. He is associated with a series of programmes and organizations to combat communal violence in India. As a renowned art critic and art historian he writes reviews and reports on Indian classical dance and music events. Currently he is working as the editor of TheSamata.in and is a member of editorial board of The Nartanam, a dance journal published from Hyderabad. He is also a renowned script writer for Odissi dance performances. He was the Former Editor of the Sachitra Vijaya, one of the leading literary journals of Odisha, and a former member of Odisha Sahitya Academy.

Friday, September 27

Moderator: Anurima Banerji

Bio: Anurima Banerji is Associate Professor in the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. She is the author of the monograph Dancing Odissi: Paratopic Performances of Gender and State, recipient of the 2020 de la Torre Bueno Prize awarded by the Dance Studies Association. Her essay “Dance and the Distributed Body,” in About Performance, received the 2013 Gertrude Lippincott Award from the Society of Dance History Scholars. She co-edited How to Do Politics with Art (2017) with Violaine Roussel; a special issue on decolonizing dance discourses for Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies with Royona Mitra (2020); and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Indian Dance with Prarthana Purkayastha. Additional writings appear across several journals and anthologies. She has received multiple fellowships, most recently from NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, in support of her research. Currently she is writing a book on The Impossibility of Indian Classical Dance. She trained in Odissi dance and is also a poet.

Speakers:

Ileana Citaristi

Topic: Traditional Stories Imagined for a Contemporary World

Bio: Italian by birth, Padmashree Dr Ileana Citaristi holds a Doctorate in Philosophy with a thesis on ‘Psychoanalysis and eastern mythology’. She has come to Indian dance after years of experience in the traditional as well as experimental theatre in Europe. Ileana has been living in Orissa, India, since the year 1979 in close contact with the people, their language and culture. Her mentor in Odissi dance is the renowned Guru, Padma Vibhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra. She is equally at home with the different martial postures of the Chhau dance of Mayurbhanji which she has learnt under the guidance of Guru Shri Hari Nayak, obtaining the title of Acharya from the Sangeet Mahavidyalya of Bhubaneswar.

Her contributions, besides the many performances and lecture-demonstrations given in all the major centres in India, include articles on Oriya culture published in Indian and foreign magazines, research work for film-documentaries on Odissi and Chhau dances and the publication of five books, including The Making of a Guru: On the Life and Times of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. She has given performances in all the major dance festivals in India as well as abroad and she is known for her innovative and creative choreographies both in Odissi and Chhau. In Bhubaneswar she is imparting training in Odissi and Chhau dances to local as well as visiting students in her own institution Art Vision, founded by her in the year 1995. Through Art Vision, Ileana has organised several Festivals unique in concept like the Kalinga Mahotsav, a Festival of Martial Dances held in front of the Dhauli Stupa yearly since 2003 and Sangam Festival since 2005. Regular performances are held at Art Vision Auditorium for tourists and guests.

Nandini Sikand

Topic: From Drishit and Darsan: The In-Betweenness of Odissi

Bio: Nandini Sikand (they, she) is an anthropologist, filmmaker, writer and choreographer/dancer. They are the co-founder and co-director of Sakshi Productions, a neo-classical and contemporary dance company and Professor & Chair of an interdisciplinary film and media studies program at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, USA. Sikand is currently working on two books, Visualizing the Thug(gee): Colonialism, Race and Criminality, and a collection of essays about parenting while brown in the keystone state. In their spare time, they teach yoga and dance, and attempt to parent two high-schoolers alongside a canine named Glitch.

Kaustavi Sarkar

Bio: Kaustavi Sarkar, Assistant Professor, is a dancer-choreographer-educator-scholar. Sarkar has been performing and teaching Odissi, for over a decade while pursuing a career in US academia. She has taught at Kenyon College and holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University (OSU) in Dance Studies with interdisciplinary research interests in digital humanities, cultural studies, queer studies, and religious studies. Sarkar's first book ‘Dance Technology Social Justice: Individual and Collective Techniques of Emancipation’ published by McFarland Publishers explores the potential of Odissi in experimentation with dance-technology and as a mode of social justice. She is working on a second monograph in contract with the University of North Carolina Press called ‘Shaping S Curves’ which explores the theory, practice, and philosophy of Odissi dance. Sarkar is a leader in her field as the founder of the journal ‘South Asian Dance Intersections' (SADI) and the 'Dance and Community Research Institute' (dNc), which is an arts-education, arts-consultancy, and arts-entrepreneurial project bringing artists, educators, and leaders together for systemic change. She also serves as a Regional Director for American College Dance Association.

Topic: Book launch of Dance, Technology, and Social Justice: Individual and Collective Emancipation through Embodied Techniques

Saturday, September 28

Moderator: Shriya Patnaik

Bio: Shriya Patnaik is a finishing PhD researcher (Department of International History and Politics) at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Switzerland, where her research has been supported by the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Community Scholarship. Her research focuses on histories of marginalization and adaptation surrounding the community of Devadasis in Odisha through the lens of the now-extinct hereditary community of ritualistic temple-dancers in the Jagannath Temple of Puri, colloquially known as “Maharis”. In particular, she examines the enduring legacies of colonial laws upon postcolonial worlds, especially upon the domains of gender, sexuality, subalternity, humanitarian paradigms, along with grassroots civil society movements from contemporary decades. Shriya has pursued her Bachelor's in History with a focus on South Asia Studies from Cornell University, and has subsequently pursued her Masters' in International History with a focus on Gender Studies from the Columbia University – London School of Economics dual degree MA-MSc program. Besides her academic interests, she has actively worked in the public policy, NGO, and developmental sectors in India on gender, women’s rights, and human rights initiatives, and these experiences have played a crucial role in shaping her research focus on themes of women’s rights, human rights, and marginalized gendered minorities in postcolonial societies at a transnational scale.

Speakers:

Sharmila Biswas

Topic: Combining the Formal Education System & Guru-Shishya Parampara for Effective Professional Training

Bio: Sharmila Biswas is one of the leading dancers and choreographers in the field of Indian Classical Dance. She is known for her contribution in the development and promotion of Odissi dance and music in the past three decades. One of the prominent students of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Sharmila has participated as the lead dancer in a number of her Guru’s dance productions, and toured in India and abroad. She is the Artistic Director of Odissi Vision & Movement Centre, one of the prime cultural institutions of India. Tracing the many facades of traditional performing arts of Odisha, and in that context viewing Odissi Dance and its intrinsic links with its roots, have been the foundation of most of the productions of her institution. Both her solo and group works have received critical acclaim. Sharmila is also the Dance Director of late Rituparno Ghosh’s award-winning film Chitrangada. She is graded as an "Outstanding" artiste by The Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. of India and a "Top" artist by Doordarshan, India. She is the author of a textbook in Odissi dance, titled Knowing Odissi. Her biographical book, Offstage with Sharmila Biswas, has been published by the National Indo- Canadian Council, Canada. She is the recipient of the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Odishi Dance.

Aadya Kaktikar

Topic: Scattered Bits of Myself: Reclaiming the Right to Dance My Whole Self

Bio: Dr. Aadya Kaktikar is an Associate Professor at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence. She holds a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman's University, USA, and a Masters in Teaching (Dance) from the University of Surrey, UK. An Odissi soloist, Aadya's research and teaching examines the location of traditional dance practices within contemporary education spaces. Working specifically in pedagogy, Aadya's work, drawing from embodied experiences of the arts, is located at an interdisciplinary cusp, enabling a methodological approach that moves beyond the binaries of theory and practice, doing and thinking, experiencing and writing.

Rohini Dandavate

Topic: Tradition in Context

Bio: Dr. Rohini Dandavate, a practitioner of Odissi dance, holds a doctoral degree in Cultural Policy and Arts Administration from The Ohio State University. Born and raised in Cuttack, Odisha, she was trained in Odissi at Kala Vikash Kendra. Her gurus include Dr. Menaka Thakkar, Guru Raghunath Dutta, Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena, and the legendary Padmavibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Rohini develops workshops and curricula for educational institutions and community organizations that foster an appreciation of cultural diversity through traditional arts. She has produced multimedia learning resources for Odissi dance instructors and students and has published papers and articles on issues related to Odissi dance, arts administration, cultural policy, and dance education. Rohini’s projects provide opportunities to explore, experience, and understand Odissi dance and other world cultures.

Sunday, September 29

Moderator: Kaustavi Sarkar

Speakers:

Rekha Tandon

Topic: Freedom in Classicism - Reflections on a Journey with the Gotipua Tradition

Bio: Dr. Rekha Tandon is a performer/choreographer and researcher in Odissi dance, and received her training within the guru-shishya parampara for seventeen years with Padmashree Guru Madhavi Mudgal, intermittently with Padma Vibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and with Guru Trinath Maharana. She received a PhD in Dance Studies in 2005 at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, UK, for her work exploring Odissi’s movement vocabulary and choreographic structures from the perspective of Choreological Studies. She continues to deepen her journey by ongoing research into Odissi’s roots in Yoga and tantric ritual and has authored two books: Odissi – A Dance of Sculptureand Dance as Yoga-The Spirit and Technique of Odissi. Dance Routes, her repertory company, was co-founded with Michael Weston in 1997 and was based in Bhubaneshwar for 13 years. Since 2013, Dance Routes has established a permanent centre at Skandavan beside Auroville in Tamil Nadu, India, an experimental township seeking to embody the Integral Yoga teachings of Sri Aurobindo. It is a place for learning and sharing a dance practice of Odissi informed by nondual tantric philosophy and a return to holistic living.

Sooraj Subramaniam

Topic: Pallavi: A Hybrid Exploration of Odissi Dance, Carnatic Music, and Contemporary Choreography

Bio: Sooraj Subramaniam is an Australian-Belgian dance artist of Malaysian-Indian heritage. Versatile in the dance styles of Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kathak, ballet and contemporary dance forms, he graduated from the Western Australian Academy for Performing Arts, whilst also co-directing Mudhra Dance Company in Perth, Australia. He has toured internationally with the companies SRISHTI, Akademi, Balbir Singh Dance Company, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, Kalpanarts, Seeta Patel Dance and the Maghenta Collective. His own work is an amalgam of genres, situated in hyphenated identities, interpreting freely the poetic motifs and choreographic templates from Indian dance. He is currently investigating the intersections between Odissi and contemporary techniques, pressing to find the intrinsic value of individuality within a shared artistic landscape. He lives in Ghent, Belgium.

Ananya Chatterjea

Topic: Spaces Within, In Closeness: Exploring the Expansive Potential of Odissi

Bio: Ananya Chatterjea is a 2011 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, 2012 and 2021 McKnight Choreography Fellow, 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow, 2018 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, and a 2016 Joyce Award recipient, whose work brings together Contemporary Dance, social justice choreography, and a commitment to healing justice. She is the Artistic Director of Ananya Dance Theatre, the creator of ADT’s signature movement vocabulary, Yorchhā, and the primary architect of the company’s justice- and community-oriented choreographic methodology, Shawngrām. Her second book, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance: South-South Choreographies (2020, Palgrave McMillan), re-framing understandings of Contemporary Dance from the perspective of artmakers from global south locations, was awarded the 2022 Brockett Book Prize by the Dance Studies Association. As Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota, Ananya teaches courses in dance studies, contemporary practice, and choreographing social justice.