The Attic
36 Regal Building
New Delhi - 110001

saturday 21st april
6.30 pm ‘The Tradition Continues’ an Odissi dance performance by Sudha Mallik


The traditional Odissi repertoire begins with a mangalacharan in which the dancer invokes a deity, in this case the beautiful dark goddess Matangi holding the veena and intoxicated by her own charm and beauty. Sudha then continues with the interpretation of an Oriya song about Radha and Krishna and an Ashtapadi from the Gita Govinda and a pallavi showing the joyous display of rhythmic patterns in an original music composition by Arindam Mukherjee and choreographed by herself.

Sudha has been studying Odissi for 15 years under Padmashree Smt. Madhavi Mudgal at the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. She has passed the "madhyama poorna" examination in Odissi dance and has toured extensively with her Guru in India and abroad as part of her dance troupe. She has also attended workshops conducted by Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Smt Leela Samson and taught a summer workshop organized by the NDMC. She also assists her Guru in teaching younger students. This is her first solo performance.

saturday 28th april
‘dance without frontiers festival’
6.30 pm ‘Odissi Chini Bhai-Bhai’ an Odissi dance performance by Fei-Fei Yu


In most parts of the world the rush to westernization has led to the disappearance of most traditional cultures. The kimono and the tea ceremony has almost disappeared from Japan, the four hour Peking Opera has been reduced to a half hour tourist attraction in China. Only in India is there an unbroken tradition still flourishing in music, dance and dress. Even if it is out of their culture foreign students are attracted to the ancient classical forms. Fei-Fei is a trained dancer from China who is working on her MA in Dance and learning Odissi with Sharon Lowen during her scholarship in India. She is a Kal-ke-Kalakar working intensively on the traditional repertoire of Odissi and will perform Mangalacharan, Pallavi , Ashtapadi and Mokkshya. And share her passion for India and Indian dance that brought her from China to absorb herself in a different Asian culture than her own and the journey to Odissi.

Her Guru Sharon Lowen has learnt Manipuri from Guru Singhajit Singh and Odissi from Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and has undertaken her own journey in dance from the University of Michigan to Chhau, Manipuri and Odissi in India.