KUTAPO ODISSI CLASSICAL DANCE
B-006 Trident Embassy, Sector 1 Greater Noida, West, Bisrakh Jalalpur, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201306, India
KUTAPO Odissi Classical Dance is an intimate cultural retreat tucked away in the verdant lanes of Old Town, Bhubaneswar, twenty minutes from the Lingaraj Temple. The space is part‐heritage courtyard, part‐living studio, conceived four years ago by danseuse-choreographer Kasturi Pattnaik to reclaim the temple dance’s spiritual and musical core. You arrive through an ancient terracotta gate smothered in bougainvillea, push aside a hand-beaten brass bell, and step onto cool, black-stone flooring that once belonged to a 19th-century musician’s baithak. In the center, a square, ankle-deep sand pit—dyed rust with geru—functions as the practice mandap; its borders are traced by slender brass diyas that flicker like miniature temple flames when classes begin at dusk.
Every inch vibrates with sonic attention. The northern verandah houses the kutira, a teak-walled recording alcove where Guru Mahadeva Rout tunes his pakhawaj before demonstrations. Twenty-five kholtas (clay pots), ranging from treble to earth-shaking bass, hang overhead; their surfaces are tuned with river clay each monsoon. On the east wall, a 25-key pump harmonium, blackened with age but newly re- voiced with silver reeds, stands beside two tanpuras built from jackfruit wood cut in the Konark forests. The evening riyaaz starts at 6:30—sharp clang of cymbals, a whisper of ankle bells, and then the pakhawaj’s rolling thunder, all captured by discreet studio microphones feeding an outdoor speaker so the peepal tree above joins the refrain of rustling leaves.
Classes are capped at ten students: professional dancers polishing abhinaya pieces, curators learning archival rhythms, and the occasional six-year-old who can already ripple from Manglacharan to Moksha in one breath. Friday nights invite the public to “Darpan”: 40 seats encircle the mandap, the audience barefoot, the lights just low enough to catch temple motifs painted on skin with turmeric kumkum. After each performance, Kasturi offers rose-and-sandahwood sherbet while Veena Sahay, the resident vocalist, discusses the microtones of the Odissi raga Bageshri—how the antara lingers on the panchama before diving into a meend that feels like the Hellenic blue of the Bay lingering in twilight.
Visitors leave with more than memory: a hand-bound booklet lists talas and play-along links, plus pressed marigold petals from the mandap’s floor. If you arrive early, you’ll hear slokas chanted inside the miniature Natamandapa shrine—proof that devotion here is first, artistry second, and commerce a respectful last.
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- Published: August 3, 2025
