Palace of Fine Arts 2017

Title of piece: Kalyan Pallavi

Original choreographer: Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra

Music: Balakrishna Das (for dancer Priyambada Mohanty in 1959)

Merely a handful of people around the world are familiar with this choreography as evidenced by the scarcity of archived material for Kalyaan Pallavi in Odissi. My teacher, Guru Vishnu Tattva Das conducted a 2 days intensive workshop in November 2015. A group of dancers learnt the dance piece during this workshop and performed it at the 2017 Ethnic Dance Festival in an effort to reach the piece to a bigger audience.

In Odissi the dance is split into 2 forms: a technical, pure dance made up of movements set to the beats of the music. This form is called Nritta. The other form is expressional dance called Nritya that focuses primarily on the facial expressions of the dancer in addition to the dancer’s movements. Pallavi is an example of pure dance or Nritta. Pallavi starts with slow, graceful & lyrical movements of the eyes, neck, torso & the feet & slowly builds in a crescendo to climax in a fast tempo at the end. Pallavi literally means blossoming. This is applicable not only to the dance, but also to the music, which accompanies it. Pallavi is named after the specific set of tunes that the music is set to also referred to as raaga. This pallavi is set to Kalyaan raaga.

About: Ethnic Dance Festival in San Francisco is an annual cultural event that has been successfully running for close to four decades. It is an occasion to celebrate the rich cultural diversity of the Bay Area in one of the grandest settings in San Francisco—the Palace of Fine Arts. Auditions for the summer 2018 event took place in November 2017. I was part of a group of dancers who represented Odissi Vilas, the dance school where I have been learning Odissi.

2017 Ethnic Dance Festival Audition recording by Rapt Productions inside Palace of Fine Arts.

2017 public performance recording by Ian Umeda against backdrop of Palace of Fine Arts.