Mohanty’s ability to blend different styles of movement in one frame, each keeping its identity and yet being part of an integrated whole, made it all a rivetting experience.

About 10 kilometres away from  Bhubaneswar, Dhauli is the historic site where the bloody battle of Kalinga was fought, the flowing Daya ironically rendered “Nirdaya”, its waters running red with the blood of thousands of felled soldiers. The grisly sights and ravages of war made Emperor “Chanda Ashok” take a lifelong vow to renounce war, becoming “Dharma Ashok” and spreading the message of peace worldwide through Buddhism.

The visitor to Dhauli is greeted by the majestic Peace Pagoda atop the hillock (erected with the help of Japanese Buddhists organisation, represented by a monk by name Furuta) and adjacent to it is a small Shiva temple. The annual Dhauli Kalinga festival, the brainchild of late Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, with Art Vision organising a pure martial arts festival on the verandah of the Peace Pagoda, is today a much larger event, overlooking these two magnificently illuminated monuments.

Mounted by the Department of Tourism, Government of Odisha, curated by the Orissa Dance Academy, with Art Vision as an associate in selection and coordination of three martial art groups, this festival, has down the years, acquired a large viewership — particularly among students from different arts and engineering colleges. And what is noticeable is the way the entire programme is designed from the lamp lighting to the oath of peace, with each of the chief guests standing with their back to the audience, a burning torch held in their hand, arm raised high in a salute to the monument of peace.

Featuring multiple dance disciplines, the festival opened with Gitamahatmyam, (initially sponsored by Chennai’s Kalavardhini Trust) Aruna Mohanty’s conceptualisation, post an inspiring exchange with the late Swami Dayanand Saraswati, built on a painstakingly selected base of Bhagvad Gita verses, following arduous research by persons like Kedar Mishra. Sanskrit scholar Nityananda Mishra helped in understanding fully the vital passages selected, conveying in a short span the main burden of the Gita’s message. Through a combination of excellently trained dancers of Odissi (Aruna Mohanty’s disciples), Bharatnatyam (Anita Guha’s direction and students), Kathak (Gauri Diwakar’s lead with disciples) and contemporary dancers under Bengaluru’s Janardhan Raj Urs, the sprawling two-level stage came alive with eye-catching visuals simultaneously projected on the rear screen, acting as a meaningful backdrop, supplementing dance action on stage. A case in point was the large visual of the conch in its decorative silver encasing, with music resonating with conch blowing sounds accompanied by a complementing dance formation on the stage. Well-crafted exits and entrances, synchronised groups (more often in a simultaneity of different dance forms), the totally immersed joy of the performers, and, above all, Ms Mohanty’s discerning eye being able to blend different styles of movement in one frame, each retaining its distinct identity and yet being part of an integrated whole, make Gitamahatmyam a rivetting experience. The treatment captured the central teachings to Arjuna by Krishna. The inevitable mortality of the body going from birth to childhood to old age — ending in death; the indestructible nature of the aatma or soul which waters cannot drown nor flames singe; the nature of desire consuming the mind and destroying intelligence, leading to foolhardy actions (as Sita’s desire to possess the golden deer deprived her of all intelligence, leading to her ultimate abduction by Ravana): the cosmic view of Krishna underlining the message of every micro-unit of this universe being a part of that macro-whole (he is Shankara of the Rudras, Vasuki of serpents,  Garuda of birds and Airavata of elephants and the sacred sound ‘Om’ among utterances); the limitlessness of knowledge (visualised beautifully through the metaphor of the chariot drawn by horses or the five senses, with buddhi as driver with the reins as the mind); Krishna’s declaration, “Parithraanaaya saadhoonaam vinaashaaya cha dushkrutam, dharma sansthapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge”, that when evil assumes powerful proportions, he will appear in some form on earth to destroy wrongdoing, restoring the rule of righteousness. After this exhaustive discourse to Arjuna, about the nature of Dharma and principles governing man’s life, Krishna, without insisting on any action says, “I have told you everything. Now you follow the path you deem right.” “What if after I follow the path I set for myself, I do not attain success?” queries Arjuna and the reply is that one needs to do one’s duty as a karmayogi without hankering for the fruits of any action (Karmanyevaadhikaarastu maa phaleshu kadachana…). “My doubts have been dispelled”, bows Arjuna. The music largely composed by Ramahari, with some inputs for Bharatanatyam and Kathak by respective dance choreographers. Versatile percussionist Daneswar Swain provided the rhythmic inputs — the production ringing in the festival with a bang. The main roles of Krishna and Arjuna were excellently served by Biswajeet Das and Pavitra Bhatt, respectively.

Providing more relevance to the production was relating the Gita teachings to the present, showing the path of the karmayogi Gandhi, deciding between justice and injustice, to find his means through the salt march and civil disobedience, leading the fight for Independence, all vividly caught through snippets of modern dance by the Bengaluru dancers. More action oriented with its “sarva dharma samanwaya” message, the production appealed beyond religious boundaries. Whether the quick glimpse of Dashaavataar, or of Sita’s abduction, or Yashoda playing with Krishna shown through Kathak, or crisp Bharatanatyam taanam sequences, or a Kathak tarana, the work created nonstop compulsive action. Death shown once while elaborating on bodily mortality and again while portraying Sidhartha’s anguish, and the Buddha’s philosophy of desire as the root cause of all ills, could be avoided. And the prolonged ending missed out on the optimum moment.

Paika-Bidroha was the Mayurbhanj Chhau presentation by Mayur Art Centre Bhubaneswar, the Paikas as militia nurtured by rulers of principalities being the pioneers fighting British rule, their sword, shield and spear wielding battle techniques inspiring the martial art form of Chhau. Resplendently costumed, the play took the theme of rulers resisting British rule.

The other martial art group was from Manipur presenting Thang-Ta. Again the level of skill with weapons, and the balancing feats by a very professional troupe held the audience spellbound. The third in the martial art triangle was Sreejith T.R. and group from Kerala, performing a whole narrative in modern dance movements derived directly from the virile Kalaripayattu technique, radiating an urgent immediacy.

Vadya Vani BBSR presented a tala vadya display with musician Ramahari as conductor and mardal expert Dhaneswar Swain’s rhythmic designing. This showed how large orchestras comprising talented instrumentalists provide the melodic frame, within which several talented young mardal players exhibit rhythmic virtuosity — a feature of artistic creativity among Odiya musicians — with performance space provided in all big festivals. Percussionists on mardal and cymbals flanking either side of a long central line comprising flautists, sitarists and violinists, provided multitudinous combinations of rhythmic arithmetic. And the Odissi flavour in the melody was accentuated by typical visuals on the back screen — of the Puri temple shikhara with the fluttering flag; aarti with sounds of ghanta mardala; the sea waves rising and receding like the ascending and waning patterns of rhythm;  lit lamps set afloat in the water with the moon shedding her gentle beams;  boatmen tunes with nets being pulled back to shore and folded after the day’s catch of fish. The assertive music with microphones enhancing sound, could have had, one felt, counterpointing softer touches.

Srjan’s Odissi presentation visualised by Ratikant Mohapatra, in Keerawani Madhurima, based on Vyzarsu Subramaniam’s original Keerawani composition, in choreographic neatness and immaculate group symmetry (the dancers like peas in a pod neatly turned out in pleasing costume colours), deserved high marks. But even with the mardal rhythm accompanying the original melody, which using the classical raga has created a very light hearted arrangement — different from conventional classical severity, the final effect is different from orthodox Odissi music. But visually the dance is extremely well set and for occasions like corporate events, where popular taste needs to be taken care of, without offending classical sensibilities, such compositions are handy — and dancers today need to meet these challenges. The next item, Ardhanaariswara, based on late Raghunath Panigrahi’s music began with two dancers dancing in tandem with the body in the rear partially visible, with one hand of each dancer moving in synchronisation (surprisingly like what Anita Guha in her Bharatanatyam, Ardhanaariswara, showed on this very platform years back), outlined the iconographic details of Shiva and Parvati enshrined in one entity. When the extremely well trained dancers in two groups brought out the complementing contrasting features of Shiva and Parvati ending with the salutation to Shiva, the single entity became a separated Shiva/Parvati contrast.

Odissi dancer Madhulita Mohapatra’s Nrityantara Academy of Bengaluru, combined well in the tribute to Shiva visualising him as the Jatadhara, Gangadhara, the Neelakantha who swallowed the halahal poison of Vasuki’s breath and as Tandava Shashishekhara. The second item, “Hari smarana mado”, based on a Purandharadasa composition (surprisingly similar to Sala Beg’s composition in Odia), while performed with zeal had for this critic a misfit in the Kannada words (language has its own gait) sung in Odissi melody in Bijaykumar Jena’s music (mardal was by Vijayakumar Barik). Perhaps a Hindustani style raga would work out better.

Kathak teacher/dancer Rani Karna’s interpretation of Surdas’ “Nachata Sudhanga Sri Nandananda”, first sung by Anil Biswas, portraying Gopis ecstatically following Krishna’s flute magic with the whole of Vrindavan caught in the melodic ecstasy, had subtlety, involving all the Kathak intra-forms — That, Tukra, Kavit, Chal, Gat and Tatkaar included — with movement shared by the entire group. Yamunaashtakam, evoking the spirit of the river through its journey to the sea, as a metaphor for the curves, low points and highs of life itself communicated the feel of the river right through. In all this artistic delicacy, I feel that when Rani presents her work on such large and open performance spaces, requiring reaching out to the audience seated right back, the underplayed micro aspects tend to get lost, unregistered beyond audiences in the third row. Not unwise to use more of exhibitionistic Kathak rhythmic virtuosity.   

The finale, “Make in Odisha”, an extravaganza of all dance and much else, presented by the Orissa Dance Academy, Bhubaneswar, Cornucopia Creations of Bengaluru, and Md Saiful Haque’s Cuttack organization Moksha, defied description. That a classical dancer, Ms Mohanty, could conceive of a visual representation for a feel-good Odisha profiling, including its varied movement/rhythms classical/folk/ tribal, its mining wealth, its dreams for the future, its culinary delights and its delicate filigree, its glorious handloom — popular all over the world, and last but not least its ability to blend the very ancient with the new, was a feat. From the side of the stage stretching the hitherto inactive arm was an intricately designed telescopic boom looking like filigree work in steel, transporting through the skies the huge Konark wheel, with a chain under it supporting the Malkhamb performer and later a young woman with handloom fabric flowing from her body. One bows down to a government which provides so much patronage to the arts, with faith in the artiste’s vision. A magnificent event making not just the Odiya but every Indian heart swell with pride!