Odissi dancer Madhulita Mohapatra confesses she came to Odissi rather late compared to other classical dancers who start young. “I was 19 when I got an opportunity to learn Odissi. I had watched Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra and Sanjukta Panigrahi on television and I had always wanted to learn it,” says Madhulita over the phone from Bengaluru where she is based. 

The reason she could not was that there were no teachers of Odissi in her hometown Bhawanipatna in Odisha’s Kalahandi district. She did however learn Sambalpuri folk dance. On reaching Bhubaneswar for her college education, she got her chance, learning under gurus such as Padma Shri Guru Gangadhar Pradhan, Padma Shri Aruna Mohanty and Pabitra Kumar Pradhan. “There has been no looking back since!” says the dancer who will perform at the Changampuzha Park, Edappally, as part of Changampuzha Maholsavam’s Nritholsavam. The last time she performed in Kochi was in 2019. 

Madhulita is not new to Kochi, she has been conducting workshops in Odissi at Sporty Beans, Tripunithura. She comes every couple of months for the offline classes for her students. “I am trying to popularise the dance form in Kerala, and I have a few students. Not as many as I would like and I think it is because there is not much awareness about the form. I hope to create awareness of Odissi dance through my classes and performances,” she says.

Although it is very different from Mohiniyattam, Madhulita, 44, says both are extremely feminine forms. 

On her move to Bengaluru in 2009, she started teaching with just a handful of kids from her neighbourhood. “It has grown and now I have an Odissi dance school, Nrityantar 300 students. I have around 1000 plus online students from across the globe,” says the recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2018.   

Madhulita will perform Colours of Krishna, with her students of the Nrityantar Dance Ensemble, at the Changampuzha Maholsavam, in which the dancers will “showcase through dance the various ‘roles’ of Krishna — as an adorable child, a son, brother, saviour, destroyer of evil... It will depict episodes from Krishna’s life — his escapades with the gopis, destroying Kaliya, the serpent, killing Kamsa among other anecdotes.”

Madhulita Mohapatra will perform at Changampuzha Maholsavam (Changampuzha Park) on December 8, 6pm.