Transcending Gender and Self in Odissi Dance: Talk and Performance by Bijayini Satpathy

0:00- Jennifer Homans introduces event
3:39- Bijayini Satpathy introduces Odissi dance
16:33- Bijayini introduces the Mangalacharan dance
18:01- Bijayini performs the Mangalacharan dance
25:00- Bijayini introduces the Sun Maiya dance
27:11- Bijayini performs the Sun Maiya dance
37:11- Bijayini introduces the Ahe Nila Soila dance
40:40- Bijayini performs the Ahe Nila Soila dance
52:19- Bijayini introduces the Vigraha dance
53:59- Bijayini performs the Vigraha dance
55:26- Conversation with Bijayini Satpathy, Anurima Banerji, and Jennifer Homans
1:13:30- Audience Q&A with Bijayini Satpathy, Anurima Banerji, and Jennifer Homans

In this rare event, the dancer Bijayini Satpathy (CBA '24) took us on a journey of transformations through performed excerpts from Odissi dance. She reflected on gender conventions in Odissi and on the freedoms, limits, and paradoxes they pose in her own work in conversation with Jennifer Homans, Founder and Director of CBA, and Anurima Banerji, Associate Professor of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA.

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.