Odissi

It is one of the famous classical Indian dances from Orissa State. The history of Odissi dance a almost two thousand years old. Odissi is a highly inspired, passionate, ecstatic, and sensuous form of dance. Like most of the South Indian classical dances of India Odissi too had its origin in the Devadasi tradition. Odissi sequentially includes an invocation followed by nritta, nritya, natya, and moksha. The invocation called Mangalacharana is performed followed by offering of flowers called Pushpanjali and salutation to Mother Earth referred as Bhumi Pranam. Next in line is performance of Batu or Batuka or Battu Nrutya or SthayeeNrutya which is pure dance or nritta dedicated to Lord Shiva. It is performed only on rhythmic music without any recitation or singing. The next part is nritya that encompass expressional dance or Abhinaya to communicate a story, song, or poetry through hand gestures or mudras, emotions, or bhavas and eye and body movements. The next part natya includes a dance drama based on Hindu mythological texts and epics. An Odissi dance performance is concluded with the dance movement referred as Moksha that aims to communicate a feeling or emancipation of the soul.