Balangir: Artists from the district performed Koshali Dashabatara, a unique endeavour by veteran music and dance exponent Ghasiram Mishra at the town auditorium here on Wednesday evening. The dance-drama, staged in Koshali folk tradition, was supported by the Union ministry of culture. The dance-drama was conceptualised, composed and directed by Mishra.

Dashabatara, which talks about the evolutionary process of the life on earth, is about the ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu that starts with fish or matsya avatar and ends with the last incarnation of Lord Buddha. It was a group performance of about 50 minutes' duration in Koshali tradition. The different avatars of Lord Vishnu came alive on the stage through the inimitable style that left the audience spellbound.

The lyrics aptly fitting the story of the incarnations of the lord was written by Mishra that lent totality to the performance. The dance-drama had all the elements of the Koshali folk tradition and the artists did a commendable job.

Mishra said that the main focus of the dance-drama was to search classicality in the Koshali folk tradition. "The Koshali folk dance and music is rich with classical elements. I put in a lot of research into the project before coming up with the performance. I have tried my best to be honest in composing the dance-drama and make it worthy of stage performance sticking to the basic of Koshali tradition. The main purpose of the project is to bring to light the classical aspects of the Koshali tradition," he said.

The veteran exponent of dance and music further said that it was an experimental experience for him. "For me, it is an experiment to search the classicality in the Koshali folk tradition," he said.

Singer Swayamprava Padhi, the editor of Bhubaneswar's music magazine Samadhwani, lauded the effort of the octogenarian guru. She called upon youths to come forward to take forward the cultural tradition.