CFP: 5 years of Odissi Odyssey at UNC Charlotte
Odissi Odyssey: Dancing Worlds
2025 Conference
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Date: May 3-4, 2025
The 2025 Odissi Odyssey meeting in Charlotte will complete UNC Charlotte Dance’s five years of hosting the largest gathering of Odissi dancers outside of India. This occasion aims to facilitate new ideation and garner greater appreciation for the unacknowledged roots. It wants to continue fostering international exchange and dialogic learning in the field, one that remains fostered in its textual and oral transmission of information. At the same time, it beckons us to engage critically with the violences embedded in casteist, classist, and ableist practices. Dancing Worlds calls for Odissi artists worldwide to articulate how their artistry and investments create worlds fostering both diversity and belonging. Presentations may address, but are not limited to, the following topics/questions:
- How can the traditional canon be made more accessible to the larger arts community?
- What would constitute reimagination, reconstruction, disruption and/or broadening of the canon in written and embodied forms?
- What does it mean to work towards a “global” consciousness in the field of Odissi dance? What happens to local narratives and stories in the search for globalizing Odissi dance studies?
- What epistemologies, cosmologies, and ontologies might we embrace that are not currently part of hegemonic intellectual and artistic cartographies?
-What critical and creative departures are being conceived of in the field to find greater resonance and relevance in contemporary complexities?
Proposed presentations may take the form of research-papers, solo performances, or ensemble performances. A 250-word abstract is required with a title, and the format specified. Please complete the conference application by March 15 2025 to be considered for the May 3-4 2025 event.
Dr. Kaustavi Sarkar
Convenor, Dance and Community Research Institute
