Bhubaneswar: About 250 dancers and 50 dance institutions from India, US and Sri Lanka are taking part in the Kolkata Odissi Utsav, which started in Calcutta on Friday.
The Odissi International Festival Forum of Bhubaneswar and the Malashree Dance Institute of Calcutta have jointly organised the event.
"We have been hosting the Odissi International Annual Dance Festival in Bhubaneswar for the past eight years, in which Odissi dancers from 19 countries take part. Every year, more than 300 dancers and delegates come together for the festival in Bhubaneswar. With its growing demand among the Odia community, we decided to expand its base as a multi-city annual event across India," said the forum founder Shyamhari Chakra.
Apart from Bhubaneswar, the forum is hosting festivals in Bangalore, Calcutta,Mumbai and New Delhi this year.
"Bengal has patronised Odissi in a big way, and after Odisha, the largest number of Odissi dancers and institutions are in Bengal with Calcutta being the epicentre of the dance form. The Kolkata Odissi Utsav is an attempt to showcase and highlight maximum number of dancers and dance institutions from Bengal. Besides, dancers from the northeast are also taking part in the event in addition to those from Odisha, Karnataka and Delhi. Sri Lanka is being represented by Buddhi Edrisinghe, the only Odissi dancer of the country, while two dancers from USA are also performing at the festival," Chakra said.
"The festival is dedicated to late Muralidhar Majhi, who hailed from Odisha, and later settled down in Calcutta. He had hugely contributed to promote Odissi in Calcutta. Hence, we decided to dedicate this first ever Calcutta event on him. His wife Annapurna Majhi inaugurated the festival," said Malashree director and Odissi dancer Arpita Venkatesh, who is the convener of the festival.
Odissi gurus and exponents from Caluctta - Poushali Mukherjee, Sutapa Talukdar, Aloka Kanungo, Rina Jana, Puspita Mukherjee, Monalisa Ghosh, Dona Ganguly and Debamitra Sengupta are taking part in the festival.
