Aravi Pallavi by Halo Seronko

A journey of Odissi Dance:

10 years ago I fell in love with one of the most complicated, intricate and, in my opinion, divine art forms that has birthed from the hearts of humanity.

This love brought a 24 year old starry eyed western woman across the seas to India where she naively thought she could learn the dance form in a few months time. Ha!

She was me btw ;)

I remember seeing a video of the legendary Sujata Mohapatra performing this exact choreography, and with all my heart I wanted to learn it. Little did I know it would be a decade before that happened. Us westerners can be so impatient, and that impatience gets smashed by the reality of classical arts and Eastern ethics and approach.

With time I grew to understand more and more. I trained hard and found the greatest level of dedication in my life. I received so much more from this art form than simply its steps. It changed my life. And like any relationship there were challenges.

Some years ago I was severed from this love by a serious knee injury that not only kept me from dance, but also daily functions of everyday life, like walking...for a year...

It took 3 long and heart wrenching years to return to this great love, and I was amazed how much was still there, a testament to my earlier dedication.

With my return my dance had softened and matured, but there were limitations. My form and footwork are not as clean as before the injury. I may never be able to do floor work, I can't train like I used to and I need to be more careful now. But I will work with my limitations to have the joy of this art in my life.

After a year of delicious reunion, I finally learned this dance, Aravi Pallavi from my beautiful teacher Revital Carroll of www.shaktibhakti.com. I finally decided to make my first video only a couple short months after learning the item.

So here it is, fresh off the press, imperfect, but full of love, gratitude and with a story of triumph and tribulation behind it.

Deep bows and eternal gratitude to all my teachers who have so generously nourished my love of this art form over the years:

Padma Charan Dehury
Colleena Shakti
Sujata Mohapatra
Sonali Mishra
Ruth Rhiannon
Revital Carroll

And of course to the incredible choreographer the late Padma Vibhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra.

Thank you to Nitai Shalom for capturing this milestone with your wonderful film work.

May the dance go on!