Hearing-impaired Odissi exponent Sonali Mohapatra will perform in Mumbai this week

Sonali Mohapatra performs at the Odissi International Festival

When Bhubaneswar-based Odissi exponent Sonali Mohapatra takes stage, her performance unfolds in two distinct worlds. One where she moves flawlessly to the audience's awe, and another inside the artiste's mind where a rerun of rigorous learnings and memorised rehearsals dictate each of her moves. Living with hearing impairment since the age of five, it's one of the ways the artiste continues to kindle her passion for Odissi. Over a video call assisted by an interpreter, Mohapatra walks us through her journey, one step at a time.

"I would accompany my father, a trained vocalist himself, to Odissi shows. I remember being starstruck by the graceful dancers and mimicking them at home later," the artiste reveals, adding that it took Nirmal Kumar Mohapatra, her father, some convincing to come around to the idea of his daughter taking up a dance form, knowing the inseparable part music and sound play in a dancer's journey.

Mohapatra's bid to adapt to her circumstances began with memorising taal and laya. "My father took a hiatus from his own career to help me memorise the rhythms to popular compositions. The training was intense. I couldn't afford to miss a single beat. The room for error was non-existent," she recalls.

It's this training, perhaps, that has helped the 45-year-old ace performances worldwide. "I can feel the mardala rhythm faintly. I wait for the first beat. When it is struck, it's my cue to start singing the composition in my mind. The count plays in my head like a metronome, helping me understand what part of the composition I might be in," Mohapatra explains.

When the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar awardee performs in Mumbai tomorrow, she'll be walking, or rather dancing, down memory lane. Her father's composition set to the story of Ardhanarishwara, a form of Shiva combined with Parvati, will make up the first half of the performance. Kede Chandha Jane Lo Sahi, the second piece, will witness Mohapatra narrate Hindu deity Krishna's escapades and misadventures from his childhood. "I performed this piece at my first solo show in Cuttack as a 14-year-old. It was the first time that people waited for my autograph after a show. It has evolved with me and continues to change with every performance," she shares.

While Mohapatra is evidently excited leading up to the show, we learn that she has a larger cause on her mind these days. Training young enthusiasts in her hometown in Bhubaneswar, she says, is a ‘full circle moment'. "I started off as a young enthusiast who knew little about the art form. When I teach students today, I am not only teaching them dance, but also values like dedicating yourself to the art form, relentless hard work, and above all, sacrifice," she signs off.

ON June 27; 6.30 pm AT NCPA, Nariman Point.
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