Bhubaneswar, Dec. 15: Saswat Joshi is one of the brightest young male Odissi dancers of the state today.

Saswat hails from the town of Titlagarh in Balangir district and both his parents are schoolteachers. A passion for dance gripped his heart since childhood but it has not been an easy journey believes the classical dancer.

“Since there was an atmosphere of academics at home, my parents always wished that I become a doctor or an engineer,” he says. With not many institutes available in his hometown to learn dance, Saswat used to watch the television and pick up moves of classical as well as modern dances.

“I was appreciated for performance at school functions. But my classmates and neighbours used to tease me for being so crazy about dance being a boy,” Saswat says. “So I joined NCC where we used to have tours, so that I could perform during the cultural programmes there. At times Odissi dancers Santanu Behera and Prasant Patnaik used to train me for these events,” he says .

Even after he completed his Class XII he could not convince his parents to let him take up dance. “But once, when former chief minister J. B. Patnaik saw my performance at a function in Titlagarh, he immediately asked me to come to Bhubaneswar and join the Odissi Research Centre (ORC). He even met my parents the next day and asked them to allow me to pursue Odissi,” reminisces Saswat.

Finally able to convince his parents, Saswat met Patnaik in Bhubaneswar and the latter recommended his name to danseuse Kumkum Mohanty at the ORC. Saswat joined the ORC in 2000 and emerged a gold medal winner from the Chandigarh University in his Bisharad (bachelor degree) exams in 2005. He also won a gold medal in his Master’s exams in Odissi dance from the Rabindra Bharati University in 2007.

Saswat has toured many countries in Europe and Asia and even trains students there. He has also found an institute to train students in Bhubaneswar, known as Lasyakala.

His duets with danseuse Illeana Citaristi have won him wide appreciation. “I could not interact much with the late Gurus, Kelucharan Mohapatra and Gangadhar Pradhan. But they always remain my idols,” says Saswat.

“I wish to make Odissi popular world wide continuing their dream,” he smiles.