Orissi dance … ancient tradition revived in Vancouver - Indian dance production in British Columbia

Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Summer, 1998 by Suniti Pande

On the west coast of Canada, in culturally diverse Vancouver, most mainstream Indian dances have representation. You will find Kathak, Bharat Natyam, Modern Dance, North Indian folk dances, i.e. Bhangra and the Gujarati stick dance-Garba. Orissi, a recently revived form of classical dance performed in temples on India's East coast, would be a rare treat to come by, even in India. However, large or small like in Noah's ark, every dance creature is found here.

One ambitious eighteen-year-old carries the responsibility of representing Orissi in this part of the world, on this ark:

I first saw Gargi Banerjee in 1995, performing when she was fifteen years old, at a local cultural festival. She boldly explained what she was doing and gave a vigorous and technically accurate performance. I was captivated not only by her dance, but also by the way she held the audience's attention with her thorough explanations.

She made her debut as a professional dancer last summer displaying a full repertoire of dance pieces in a ceremony called "rangapravesh" (which means "entering the field").

So, how did she get where she is?

After losing her father to cancer, Gargi and her mother emigrated to Vancouver from India. She was seven at the time. An only child of a working mother, Gargi is well known in the Indian community for her devotion to dance, and is involved with its cultural activities on a voluntary basis. "I have been learning dance from the age of four or five. It was something I always wanted to do."

It was also her late father's wish, although dance or performing arts are not in their background. Her mother, who teaches physics at a secondary school, shares her enthusiasm and love of dance. Although she did not have the chance to learn dance herself when little, she saw early on Gargi's interest in it and gave her unflinching support to pursue this art form.

Dance as a popular art form has only in the last few decades been "allowed" for respectable women in India. In the last few centuries, and under Islamic and then British rule, dance had changed from being a mode of devotion and meditation in the temples, to acquiring an erotic, shady reputation. Influenced by Victorian sensibilities, a stigma developed around dancers, revealed in an Oriya proverb "one with modesty plays instrumental music, one with no shame sings, and the most shameless of all dances" [Priyambada Mohanty, an Orissi dancer who gained early recognition-quoted from Ratna Roy's book Orissi Dance.]

Now, with the revival of traditional Indian arts which are over two thousand years old, Gargi carries on something that had nearly died out. But for the efforts of Guru Pankaj Charan Das, who passed on his style to Gargi's teacher, Ratna Roy, and the efforts of other principal gurus, Kelucharan Mahapatra and Deba Prasad Das, the dance would have remained silent and locked-as memories and images in the form of stone sculptures of dancing figures on temple walls of East India.

That we can see living, moving forms of ancient dances is as exciting as it would be to see Egyptian figures come alive from paintings of the walls of the pyramids.

"So what do you like about Orissi?"

"I like the very graceful upper body movement which is a soft side-to-side swaying movement, contrasting with firm footwork which gives definition and rhythm. Both are aesthetically very satisfying in the balance of feminine and masculine energies."

The positions and postures are indeed unmistakable, in the "deflected hip, tilted head and rounded arm position" [Ratna Roy] showing and celebrating the full bodied female form. [See photograph.] Once seen they remain in the mind as searing images of sensual feminine beauty.

"How did you start? You cannot have known exactly what you wanted straightaway?"

"I started by learning the South Indian classical form of Bharat Natyam, but found it dull and rather formal in style."

Gargi studied ballet for a little while but again felt it was not her style. Then her mother learned that Ratna Roy, a student of Guru Pankaj Charan Das, was teaching Orissi in Seattle.

Never mind the four hour drive, Gargi, aged ten, decided this was it. Twice a month eight hours of driving, an overnight stay, and rigorous practice in between. "My teacher made me do one hundred jumps in a stretch to strengthen the legs," she recalls with a smile. And between classes, practice for half an hour or an hour everyday. And much more before a performance.

"Where have you performed?"

"As part of a troupe, with my teacher in the U.S. In Vancouver at the Annual City festival celebrating multicultural dance events. At the Robson media centre, through the India Music Society of Vancouver. For the Vancouver Multicultural Society at the Planetarium downtown. At Canada Place [Vancouver] for Canada Day. At the Norman Rothstein Theatre [Vancouver] for the Indian Community and at a dance conference on Bharat Natyam 1993 in Winnipeg.."

"You won an international competition when you were fifteen. Where was that?"

"At the Lumbini Dance Competition organized by Carlton University in Ottawa, held in Toronto in the year 1994. I won the competition in Orissi. There were dancers from Toronto and the U.S. against whom I competed. One of the judges at the competition, impressed, invited me to dance in a festival in Germany in 1995. I represented Orissi for Canada. Other dances performed there were Bharat Natyam, Kathak, Flamenco, Ballet, Modern, and African American to name some. It was very exciting and I met many interesting people there."