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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Odissi dance performed by Citaristi

DIBRUGARH, Oct 6: Famous Odissi dancer, Ileana Citaristi, performed at Sampoorna Kendriya Vidyalaya here today as part of the programme organized by the Dibrugarh branch of SPIC MACAY.

The Odissi exponent gave a brief demonstration of the basic steps, hand movements and body postures integral to the dance, besides touching upon abhinaya and mudra. A piece of her presentation enacted Radha pleading with Krishna. During an interactive session, the Italian-born dancer answered the queries that the school children came up with. While responding to a question about the hurdles she faced to take up dance, she said that no one in her family was a dancer and she had to go against their wish to take up the art form. Ileana Citaristi revealed that she did learn ballet as a small child but had to discontinue it. She said that when she first encountered Odissi, it was primarily for her theatre work but decided to concentrate on the dance form later. A disciple of late Kelucharan Mahapatra, Citaristi has won several awards including the National Award for Best Choreography in 1996 for her dance direction in the Bengali film Yugant directed by Aparna Sen. She is also an expert in Chhau dance. THE SENTINEL

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