First ever Odissi dance festival held at Oxford University video
The first ever Odissi dance festival held at the prestigious Oxford University in the United Kingdom and it is also the first ever Indian classical dance festival being held in the 900-year-old University.
The festival held on Friday at the famous Magdalen Grove auditorium of Oxford University left the audience mesmerised, evoking a standing ovation on multiple time.
The dance festival commonly known as “Oxford Odissi festival” is a brainchild of Baisali Mohanty, a Master’s Degree student in International Studies at the Oxford University, who founded the Odissi Centre at Oxford University for popularising dance form at the global level.
Those performed at the festival included renowned Odissi exponent Padma Shri Ileana Citaristi, Oxford Odissi Centre founder Baisali Mohanty, Turkish dancer GuzinYener, Srilankan dancer Sutha Poonambalam, Elizabeth Verghese, Suwanja Srikantha, Nisha Somasundaram and many other notable dance exponents from over 11 countries. Besides featuring Odissi solo, Odissi duet &Odissi Group choreographies, the festival featured a captivating jugalbandi of Odissi dance with Kathak, Bharatnatyam and Mohiniyattam.
The festival organised by Oxford Odissi Centre in association with Oxford India Society and the Indian High Commission in London was attended by a host of dignitaries including senior Indian diplomats, a number of British parliamentarians, renowned academics of Oxford University, British artists and celebrities and many other notable personalities.
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Here Odissi is elegantly performed by Nisha Somasundaram and Baisali Mohanty.
