One of my favorite classical-dance related blogs, Sacred Space, recently posted a teaser from the upcoming documentary film Odissi - From the Temples to the Contemporary Stage by Sandrine Da Costa (with collaboration by the Sacred Space blog author herself, Isabel Putinja). The film is beautifully shot and looks to feature an excellent array of Odissi artists and performances.
Click on the teaser screencap collage below to link to the original Sacred Space post to watch the teaser:
What struck me most was the recent footage of young male gotipua dancers! A cursory look into Odissi history usually reveals its origins in the dances of the maharis and nartakis (Oriya temple and court dancers), the gotipuas (pre-pubescent boys apparently trained in acrobatic and mahari-imitative dance and dressed like girls), and perhaps the martial arts and dance theater traditions of the area. Some writings allude that modern Odissi actually largely came from the gotipua and theater traditions (and it's interesting to note most of the men who came together to form "Odissi" were former gotipua and theater dancers). For more on the subject, I would recommend the section "Odissi, Temple Rituals and Temple Sculptures" from Alessandra Lopez y Royo's online book ReConstructing and RePresenting Dance: Exploring the Dance/Archeology Conjunction hosted at the Stanford Humanities Lab website [Update: The Stanford site is no longer available, but the book can be viewed at Lopez y Royo's Academia page]. (Sidenote: I've just discovered her writings in a couple hardcopy dance books I've been reading and she looks to have some fascinating information/theories.)
Click on the teaser screencap collage below to link to the original Sacred Space post to watch the teaser:
What struck me most was the recent footage of young male gotipua dancers! A cursory look into Odissi history usually reveals its origins in the dances of the maharis and nartakis (Oriya temple and court dancers), the gotipuas (pre-pubescent boys apparently trained in acrobatic and mahari-imitative dance and dressed like girls), and perhaps the martial arts and dance theater traditions of the area. Some writings allude that modern Odissi actually largely came from the gotipua and theater traditions (and it's interesting to note most of the men who came together to form "Odissi" were former gotipua and theater dancers). For more on the subject, I would recommend the section "Odissi, Temple Rituals and Temple Sculptures" from Alessandra Lopez y Royo's online book ReConstructing and RePresenting Dance: Exploring the Dance/Archeology Conjunction hosted at the Stanford Humanities Lab website [Update: The Stanford site is no longer available, but the book can be viewed at Lopez y Royo's Academia page]. (Sidenote: I've just discovered her writings in a couple hardcopy dance books I've been reading and she looks to have some fascinating information/theories.)
