Columnist
ODISSI TODAY -Challenges despite state support

In 1954, when Priyambada
Mohanty with the late Guru
Debaprasad Das accompanying
her on the mardal, and Aarati Kar
providing vocal accompaniment,
danced in the historic Inter-University
Youth Festival at Delhi, to be awarded
the third prize, in what was the first
Odissi performance rendered outside
its home of Odisha, nobody could have
foreseen developments, which within
two or three decades would see Odissi
as one of the most popular of India’s
dance traditions, practised in several
parts of the world. It was much later in
1957 that the Jayantika meetings held
at Loknath Misra’s house, brought
together the scattered Odissi teachers,
litterateurs, and scholars to codify and
standardise a performance format. The rest is history.