Rahul Acharya and Sunanda Nair

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 24: Indian dance forms that have emerged from spirituality and developed in temples, are performed on the stage by artistes from all over India at the Devdasi national dance festival. The festival commenced on Wednesday at Rabindra Mandap.

The ninth edition of the annual festival will showcase eight classical dance forms of the country. It began with Odissi, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi and Manipuri shows on the inaugural day. Renowned dancer Lingaraj Pradhan moved the audience with an Odissi feat followed by a solo act by Bharatnatyam danseuse Rukmini Vijaykumar of Bangalore. Dali Basu Choudhury from New Delhi presented a recital, so did Kuchipudi artiste Shreelakshmi Govardhan from Kerala and Manipuri dancer W. Lokendrajit Singh of Imphal.

“It was mesmerising to witness so many dance forms. Each of the sequences included tales of devotion,” said Prabhat Nayak, an art lover.

The three-day-long fiesta will include performances by Rahul Acharya, Dibyashree Panda, Sangeeta Dash and Tulika Tripathy for Odissi and also Rajashree Warrier (Bharatnatyam), Mallika Kandali (Satriya), K Manoj Kumar (Kathakali), Sunanda Nair (Mohini Attam), Deepika Reddy (Kuchipudi) and Malti Shyam (Kathak).

“The festival has been amalgamating classical dance forms,” said the host- the secretary of Devdasi Nrutya Mandir, the Puri-based organisation, Jagabandhu Jena “There are many other dance forms like Mahari, that used to be practiced in temples but are slowly fading out as they were confined to their sanctum,” he added.

The festival also confers the Devdasi Awards to the artistes. This year, the awards will be presented to Sangeeta Dash, Sunanda Nair, Deepika Reddy, Malika Kandali, Malti Shyam, Manoj Kumar, Rajashree Warrier and W. Lokendrajit Singh. The award ceremony will be held on Friday, the last day of the festival.