When Ileana Citaristi came to India from Italy in 1979 to learn the “full body grammar” that existed in Indian dance she only expected to stay for a year. She ended up staying here for 16 years and making Odisha her home.

“I came to learn movement and involve it in my theatre work. I did not know it would become my home,” said Odissi and Chhau dancer Citaristi, whose autobiography My Journey: A Tale of Two Births, will be launched at the Satyajit Ray Auditorium, ICCR, on Monday.

The book covers her life in Italy — her involvement in the student movement, the feminist movement, her work in conventional theatre and switch to physical and experimental theatre — and then her search for inspiration and her learnings.

“I have documented all the changes that took place and how a rebel, who came to India for the first time in 1975 as a part of Flower Power movement and who rebelled against tradition in Italy, submitted to tradition here and what I found through that submission,” said Citarisiti.

Citaristi names her guru, Kelucharan Mohapatra, her primary motivation for the changes that led to her learning about and adopting the culture that was very much a part of the dance.

“For the first six years I never went home. After that I went home once a year to perform and met my parents. After they passed away my connections with Italy lessened,” said Citaristi, a PhD on psychoanalysis and eastern mythology.
My Journey: A Tale of Two Births is her third book.