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 Mumbai Odissi Utsav comes of age- Shyamhari Chakrae-mail: shyamhari@yahoo.com Photos courtesy: Asha Nambiar, Chairperson, Mumbai Odissi Utsav-2025 November 17, 2025 One of the 12 Odissi Utsavs mounted across India by the 15-year-old Odissi International Forum - a global network of Odissi dancers - Mumbai Odissi Utsav was launched in 2018 as a two-day event hosted by well-known Odissi exponent Daksha Mashruwalla's Kaishiki Nrityabasa in association with various Odissi dance institutions of the city. A community managed and funded initiative, the annual event is being hosted rotation-wise by one of the Odissi dance institutes of Mumbai. Accordingly, gurus Asha Nambiar's Vaishnoi Kala Kendra and Stuti Sahu's Tarijhum presented the next two editions in 2023 and 2024 respectively. The fourth edition of Mumbai Odissi Utsav was hosted by Mumbai-based artiste couple - Odissi dancer Monaswini Mohanty and Odissi singer-composer Jateen Kumar Sahu - through their Pratha Academy of Performing Arts on October 25-26 at the HSNC University auditorium.  Inauguration by Vice Chancellor, HSNC University With generous support received from the School of Performing Arts of HSNC University, the festival ascended greater heights this year. The University that offers courses in three Indian classical dance forms (Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi), Hindustani music, Tabla and theatre studies spanning from undergraduate to Ph.D programmes, is headed by Vice Chanceller Col. Dr. Hemlata K. Bagla, a noted authority in nuclear and radiochemistry having a keen interest in culture - dance in particular - having a brush with Kathak during her student career. She not only offered the expensive auditorium free of cost to host the dance event for two days but was personally present along with University's Dean Leena Pujari and Head of the School of Performing Arts Krittika Mondal at the venue even before the start of the morning session to ensure that the dancers and audience receive all sorts of comfort. "Lord Jagannath has graced this sacred space today where Maa Saraswati resides. This auditorium is meant for propagation of arts and I am happy over the collaboration between the University and the global Odissi community in hosting Mumbai Odissi Utsav here", the Vice Chancellor mentioned touching hearts of the hosts, guests, artistes and the audience.  Namrata Mehta (Photo: Kishor Gumaste) The two-day festival, spread over three sessions daily - morning, afternoon and evening - featured more than 100 Odissi dancers from Mumbai, Pune, Amravati, Nashik (all from Maharashtra), Delhi, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Gujarat apart from a dancer from Switzerland. While budding and young dancers were presented during the morning and afternoon sessions in solo, duet and group formats, the evening sessions was earmarked for senior dancers who were invited as guest artistes.  Ankur Ballal Most of the established and gifted soloists of Mumbai featured as guest performers lived up to their reputation and the spectators' expectations. Among them were Prachi Jariwala, Sangeeta Rajan, Ankur Ballal, Archana Basu, Namrata Mehta and Mitali Varadkar. A scholarly dancer, Prachi performed her own choreography Sita Swayamvara based on lyrics from the Ramcharitmanas that spoke volumes of her future as a choreographer.  Prachi Jariwala  Sangeeta Rajan  Archana Basu Pune's prominent Odissi dancer-trainer-choreographer Rasika Gumaste left a lasting imprint on the audience with her two peerless presentations. As a befitting tribute to late Guru Natabar Moharana of Mumbai - to whom the festival was dedicated this year - she performed his popular choreography Mana Uddharana followed by her own choreography Ramastakam - an ode to the unparalleled persona of Lord Rama. Her choreography bore the brilliance of brevity - the highly dramatic episodes like the Shiv dhanus bhang and Jatayu Mokshya were delineated suggestively and convincingly through the dialect of dance sans any theatrical exaggeration. Among the emerging soloists, Apurva Dani (disciple of Guru Jhelum Paranjpe), Aditi Mitra (Guru Nivedita Mukherjee), Anuja Padave (Guru Asha Nambiar), Banajyotsna Ghatak, Swarna Mondal (Guru Sangeeta Rajan), Chitrita Nair (Guru Prachi Jariwala), Mayuri Rajesh Yadav (Guru Sharmishta Chattopadhyaya), Gayatri Tambe (Guru Subhada Varadkar), Srishti Patnaik (Guru Subrata Tripathy) - all from Mumbai - Chandramukhi Muller from Switzerland (Guru Kunjalata Mishra), Anweash Mohanty from Surat, Tishya Gupta from Delhi (Guru Jaya Mehta) and Anuska Das from Odisha (Guru Pravat Swain) put up neat and impressive performances. Four budding soloists deserve a special mention who are from Mumbai and won hearts - Advaitaa and Lakshita Pradhan (both disciples of Monaswini Mohanty); Myrah Basu (disciple of Guru Debi Basu) and Anahita Mehta (Guru Daksha Mashruwala). Interestingly, Myrah and Anahita are daughters of two established Odissi dancers of the city - Archana Basu and Namrata Mehta respectively. The festival also featured group presentations by Vaishnovi Kalakendra (Guru Asha Nambiar), Nritya Nikunj (Gurus: Ketaki Shetge and Dilip Tambe), Aratrika Academy (Guru Nivedita Mukherjee), Urban Temple (Guru Sangeeta Rajan), Samyuktam Fine Arts (Guru Archana Basu) and Pratha Academy (Guru Monaswini Mohanty) - all from Mumbai. A major attraction of the festival was a seminar on late Guru Natabar Moharana who was instrumental in introducing Odissi to Mumbai. Guru Moharana's disciple Asha Nambiar conducted the seminar and screened a documentary on the Guru. Four eminent Odissi exponents of Mumbai who were intimately associated with the late maestro - Jhelum Paranjpe, Rohini Dandavate, Daksha Mashruwala and Debi Basu - offered their tribute to the late guru on the occasion.  Lifetime Achievement Award to Guru Shankar Behera Guru Sankar Behera, the other eminent Odissi guru of Mumbai, who had laid the foundation of Odissi in Mumbai along with Guru Natabar Moharana, was honoured with Odissi International Lifetime Achievement Award during the festival. With presence and intimate involvement of almost all the Odissi exponents of Mumbai; especially the city's veteran trinity - Guru Debi Basu, Guru Jhelum Paranjpe, Guru Daksha Mashruwala; collaboration with a prominent university and participation of dancers from across India and abroad, Mumbai Odissi Utsav ascended newer heights this year.  A former journalist with The Indian Express and The Hindu, Shyamhari Chakra is a Delhi-based freelancer who writes on dance. |
