The Indian Classical Dance Odissi strives to transcend gender norms and embrace an egoless state of mind. Inspired by iconography, sculptures, mythology, and introspective emotion, the dancer becomes a canvas for countless characters. Seamless transformations between gods, mortals, and demons, often ranging across genders, test physical and emotional limits, culminating in a raw, soul-baring expression in the present moment.
In this rare event, the dancer Bijayini Satpathy, a 2023-24 CBA fellow, will take us on a journey of transformations through performed excerpts from Odissi dance. She will reflect on gender conventions in Odissi, and on the freedoms, limits, and paradoxes they pose in her own work in conversation with Jennifer Homans, Founder & Director CBA, and Anurima Banerji, Associate Professor of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA.
Participant Bios:
Considered one of the foremost masters of Odissi in the world, Bijayini Satpathy (CBA ’24) has spent the last four years exploring her own choreographic path. She was the Artist-in-Residence with the Metropolitan Museum for the 2021-22 season. In 2021, she premiered her first self choreographed work “Abhipsaa – A Seeking” commissioned by Duke Performances and Baryshnikov Arts Center and supported by NEFA’s National Dance Project. Since then, she has created full length works like Call of Dawn, SiMA, Dohā, Rāgachitra and Sākshī. Bijayini will start a year-long fellowship this fall at the Centre for Ballet(CBA) affiliated with NYU, USA, to delve into another choreographic project. In 2020, she was the NY Dance and Performance Bessie Award Honoree and she was named the Best Solo Dancer in 2019 by Dance Magazine. She has been hailed by New Yorker Magazine for her “exquisite grace and technique”. Satpathy has also been mentoring Odissi practitioners across the world through her unique pedagogy since 2020. Bijayini’s Odissi journey began at the age 7 at Orissa Dance Academy, in her birth place, Orissa. She became a part of Nrityagram in 1993 and worked in the capacity of a performer, teacher, research scholar and administrator until 2018.
Jennifer Homans is the author of Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet (2010), named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is currently Dance Critic and Contributing Writer for The New Yorker, and the Founder and Director of The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University, where she is also a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. Homans holds a PhD in Modern European History and is the recipient of Guggenheim, Cullman Center, and NEH Fellowships. Her latest book, Mr B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century, was released on November 1st, 2022 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Crcle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Baillie Gifford Prize.
Anurima Banerji (UCLA, CBA ’23) is Associate Professor and current Graduate Vice Chair in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at University of California Los Angeles. Her research principally concerns critical historicizations of Indian dance and its relationship to the state. She is the author of the monograph Dancing Odissi: Paratopic Performances of Gender and State and the recipient of the 2020 de la Torre Bueno Prize awarded by the Dance Studies Association.
A NOTE ABOUT IN PERSON ATTENDANCE: In compliance with NYU Policy, guests are required to bring photo ID to gain entrance to NYU facilities. Failure to do so may result in entry denial. Additionally, all non-NYU guests must be registered in NYU’s guest access system, and the information will be used for purposes such as emergency procedures and contact tracing. We thank you for your cooperation!
This is an in-person event. The program will be recorded and posted to our Youtube channel. Please email nyucba@gmail.com with any accessibility needs.
Photograph of Bijayini Satpathy by: Arun Kumar
