Artistes of Konark Natya Mandap perform Gotipua at Spicmacay festival in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, May 27: The traditional Gotipua dance of Orissa dominated the proceedings on the fourth day of the ongoing cultural extravaganza of the 26th Spicmacay national convention at Ravenshaw .

The Gotipua dancers from Konark Natya Mandap, founded by late Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, enlivened the stage with their performance here yesterday.

Eight young male dancers dressed as women set the tone for a perfect evening by displaying splendid moves, facial expressions and acrobatic formations, which left the audience spellbound.

The troupe that included children as well looked confident executing the moves.

The performance began with the traditional bhumi pranam in which the dancers paid tribute to Lord Jagannath.

This was depicted through an expressive dance combined with perfect synchronisation of hand movements or mudras and gestures.

“Gotipua in Oriya means a single boy. But the traditional dance form is presented in pairs or groups. Gotipua originated during the end of the 15th century and beginning of the 16th century when the devdasi or mahari tradition was in a state of decline,” said Guru Banambar Swain.

The artistes presented the rich scenic beauty of western Orissa and also depicted the movements of various animals through their dance form.

However, it was the bandha nrutya or acrobatics that was appreciated the most.

Here, the dancers displayed tremendous acrobatic skills and physical endurance by staging intricate poses that are also termed as chaki, shagadi, mayura and chira mayura.

This was the best performance in the 26th national Spicmacay convention as the dancers received the loudest applause and a standing ovation for their superb performance.

“It was a one-of-its-kind performance that I had never seen before. The costumes made me think that the dancers are females but later on I came to know that they were small boys in the age group of 6 to 14 years,” said Deep Singh Virdhi, who was present in the audience.

We are happy that our performance was appreciated by the national and international delegates at Spicmacay.

The boys really work hard everyday from 4am to learn the Gotipua, which is one the ancient dance forms of Orissa,” said guru Swain.

Besides Gotipua, the drama Charan Das Chor by artistes of Naya Theatre, Rudra Veena performance by Ustad Bahauddin Dagar and a Hindustani vocal performance by Pandit Ranjan Mishra and Pandit Sajan Mishra were other attractions on Thursday.