Director: Rajika Puri
Duration: 00:11:20; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 26.841; Saturation: 0.297; Lightness: 0.065; Volume: 0.134; Cuts per Minute: 4.761
Summary: The 2nd International Odissi Festival was organised by IPAP between August 28 - 31, 2003, in Washington D.C. Dedicated to the memory of Guru Pankaj Charan Das, who passed away in June 2003, it brought together Odissi dancers and scholars from all over the world.
Trained since childhood in classical Indian dance and music - Rajika Puri's Bharata Natyam guru was Sikkil Guru Ramaswamy Pillai, her Odissi Gurukul is that of Deba Prasad Das - Rajika has also studied western music (the voice and piano), American Modern Dance (at the Graham & Cunningham studios in New York), and Flamenco. Based in New York for over twenty years, Rajika moved to Mumbai, (Bombay) for six years in 1992 and was inspired by an artistic milieu that encouraged new directions in the performing arts. A landmark project of 1998 was Flamenco Natyam, a blend of Flamenco with Bharata Natyam, presented at the Works & Process series of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and then on tour in India. In 1983 she received an MA in The Anthropology of Human Movement from New York University, specializing in how meaning is made through movements such as the hand gesture (hasta mudra) system of classical Indian theatre.
Here, in an unusual mix of narration and dance, she presents the story of Sati, an excerpt from her piece Devi-Malika, 'a garland of danced, sung, and narrated stories on the feminine divine in India.'
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