NCPA’s Mudra Dance Week

NCPA’s Mudra Dance Week that starts on April 26, focusses on male classical dancers who are finding fewer opportunities to perform on stage

When Lingaraj Pradhan was 15, his cousin suggested that the teenager take up Odissi dance. Pradhan went on to do so well in the art form that now, at the age of 30, he is considered one of the big names in the current generation of dancers. He’s toured abroad many times and has regularly held workshops across the country to encourage young people to take up classical dance. Yet, he’s not entirely satisfied. “It’s usually female dancers who get media attention, while hardly anything gets written about men. Also, the opportunities for men to dance are fewer,” he says.

This is ironic considering it was men who were largely responsible for the codification and formalisation of most Indian classical dances in their modern forms. Amrita Lahiri, head of programming for dance, at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai, says, “Many of the geniuses who have shaped the nature of Indian classical dance have in fact been male. For instance, in Kathak, we had the great Birju Maharaj, and in Odissi, we had Kelucharan Mohapatra. Every single style has had a guru of this stature.”