Odissi Dance

Odissi Dance
Every Wednesday 5:30pm-7:30pm OR every Saturday 11am-1pm
The Substation Dance Studio
Instructor: Raka Maitra
Course Fee: $425 per semester (to be paid at the start of each semester)
First semester from January to June 2012; Second semester from August December 2012
For more information, or to register, contact rakamaitra@hotmail.com
This is an OpenHouse course 

Raka Maitra will impart the basic techniques of Odissi, a highly stylised dance form with a strong technique and profound literary content from Orissa, East India. Participants will also be exposed to the exercises that were used to develop Raka’s own unique contemporary dance vocabulary.

Raka Maitra graduated with a diploma in Performing Arts from the Children’s Little Theatre, Kolkata. She then went on to specialize in Odissi under Padmashree Madhavi Mudgal and the legendary Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, as well as Serraikella Chhau under Guru Sashadhar Acharya. Raka calls herself a dancer without the classifications of classical or contemporary. Her journey is an exploration, and in her works one will find various influences of Odissi, Chhau, Kalari and Yoga. Raka received the Shringarmai, a national level award, for Odissi from the Sur Shringar Sampad in Mumbai in 1999, and has been featured in many important festivals around the world, such as the “Mystique Of India” festival in Washington, the “2nd International Odissi festival” in Washington, “Nrityanjali” in Kiev, the “India Festival” at Salamanca, the “Jhankar Festival” in Virginia, the “Cahaya Sutra” in Kuala Lumpur, and the “India Festival” in Sao Paolo.

There will be an annual performance every June where students will have a chance to perform.