The Odissi exponent’s new work ‘Call of Dawn’ combines three musical items in raag Ahirbhairav
“I do not want to be clever. It will be very simple, just a perfect turn is sufficient,” says Odissi exponent Bijayini Satpathy, when requested about conceptualising and choreographing her newest solo work, ‘Call of Dawn’. “I am not resorting to the typical movements of Odissi. It has a rich vocabulary. I am allowing my body to flow with the music.”
‘Call of Dawn’ binds collectively three musical items in raag Ahirbhairav. A verse penned and composed by poet-musician , Kazi Nazrul Islam types the central piece of the efficiency. The poet speaks within the voice of a younger lady who does Shiva puja to get the husband of her goals. She desires somebody who isn’t as radiant as Shiva however extra approachable like Krishna. “Nazrul was a poet during the Indian independence movement. So, when he is giving voice to a young, unmarried girl, he is actually pushing for the voice of women. He wants that they should be able to choose their life partner. It’s an important historical moment to register,” says Bijayini.
As a preface, the dancer explores the concepts of female and masculine and the way the temple imageries affect the younger lady’s creativeness within the phase, ‘Oned’, primarily based on Adi Sankaracharya’s Ardhanariswara Stotram. “By playing the role of the man and the woman in intimate situations, she gains confidence and strength to stand up for her choice in the Nazrul geeti,” explains Bijayini. ‘Oned’ has been composed and sung by Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, who has additionally sung the opposite compositions.
While collaborating with Bindhumalini, the dancer remembers an fascinating second. “She sang one explicit melody many instances. At one level, it created the imagery of a champa flower falling from the tree that I catch earlier than it reaches the bottom. The efficiency ends with pleasure of the approaching union conveyed by a Chakravaaka pallavi set to music by Sukanta Kumar Kundu. Srinibas Satapathy has organized the music.
The group has ensured that the efficiency lends itself to the digicam. Bijayini carried out each bit twice to not lose the movement between the adavus. It has been shot from seven totally different views, with three cameras, by Mahesh Bhat, who has additionally edited the movie. Sujay Saple has helmed the sunshine and stage design. There are technical challenges if you file a efficiency on digicam. “I may be dancing with all energy, like you do on stage, but it doesn’t come through entirely in the video, which makes it appear light and soft. So the movements have to be executed differently to create that impact.”
After 13 years of coaching in Odisha, Bijayini joined Protima Gauri’s Nrityagram because the principal dancer of the corporate and in addition served because the director for coaching. Bijayini, by her duets with dancer and choreographer Surupa Sen, has skilled how the latter has expanded the boundaries of Odissi’s vocabulary. From 2019, she has been chartering her personal journey as a solo dancer and choreographer. “I am finding my own language. It takes a few creations to know what my niche is. I will be grateful if it keeps evolving.”
Bijayini’s apply classes in her breezy terrace studio have intrigued the dance fraternity, which finds her multidisciplinary strategy to getting ready the physique distinctive. She was launched to this strategy at Nrityagram, the place Gaurima, as she reverently calls her guru, would invite dancers and trainers to carry workshops on totally different bodily health practices for the scholars. This, mixed together with her personal analysis later, helped her develop an built-in bodily conditioning for Odissi/ Indian classical dancers, which blends Yoga, Natyashastra, Kalaripayattu, Western strategies, conventional Odishi warm-up workouts, anatomy and kinesiology. “It helps prepare the body for any Indian classical dance. It works on flexibility, endurance, balance and alignment.”
The making of ‘Pranathi’
In ‘Pranathi’, one other new choreography envisioned by Bijayini and carried out by her three college students, Prithvi Nayak, Akshiti Roychowdhury and Malavika Singh, the dancer reimagines the works of Odissi stalwart Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, as primarily duet and solo. Music composition is by Pt. Bhubaneswar Mishra and lighting and stage design by Sujay. The video has been shot by Eshna Benegal and Bornil Anurag.
“There is so much intelligence in his choreography. I get very excited about it. I can almost hear the movements he is imagining; sometimes there is stillness in movement and sometimes movement in pause. I am trying to find where the suspended moments are. I had fun playing with the choreography. It has given me a different perspective to understand the Odissi vocabulary; Guruji might or might not have seen it this way, but I am seeing new things in it through this process of re-staging.”
The pandemic has turn out to be a time for artistic reflection for the dancer. It has additionally proven the relevance artwork holds for day by day life. “I feel that the arts give us access to other parts of our being that are in other realms, probably philosophical, spiritual, sensitive, open and free, things we are not in our regular lives. And those experiences make living desirable.”
