Kelucharan Mohapatra

Shri Kelucharan Mohapatra is among the great makers of dance in our times. An outstanding representative of India’s classical dance heritage and the well known pioneer associated with the recreation of its Orissan ‘bani’. He was born in 1926 in the village of Raghurajpur in Puri district of Orissa in a family of Patachitrakars. Early in life he joined the Rasilila troupe Shri Mohan Sunder Dev goswami and later at Annapurna Theatre, Cuttack, he was groomed as a dancer by Shri Pankaj Charan Das and Shri Dayal saran. He also mastered various percussion instruments, especially Pakhawaj learnig from Shri Agadhu Moharana, Shri Khetra Mohan Kar, and shri Harihar Rao. He joined Kala Vikas Kendra, Cuttack, in 1956 and in subsequent years made a vital contribution to the revival and enrichment of Odissi dance as a guru and choreographer.

A dedicated teacher and prolific creator, Shri Kelucharan Mohapatra has trained a large number of dancers over the last four decades. His art found a perfect embodiment in Sanjukta Panigrahi, his prime disciple, who passed away before her time. Sonal Manshing, Kumkum Mohanty and Madhavi Mudgal are among the other renowned dancers groomed by him. Working with them, and with musician composers like Bhubaneswar Misra and Balakrushn Das, Shri Kelucharan created a number of dance compositions extending the technique and repertoire of the Odissi style. Together with his contemporaties Deba Prasad Das and Mayadhar Raut and his teacher Shri Pankaj Charan Das, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra is responsible for establishing Odissi as a virant language of Indian classical dance.

Shri Kelucharan Mohapatra is a great dancer himself and an outstanding Pakhawaj-player. He was associated with the Odissi Research Centre, bhubaneswar, for several years as a guru and has now set up his own institution, Srijan in Bhubaneswar.

He has been honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1966), the Padma Bhushan (1988), Kalidas Samman (1989) and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (1991).