Odissi Dance Exchange: ODE by ETHOS

Over the months of May to July, Soumee De, Odissi faculty of Apsaras Arts, curated a series of webcast session for dance students, performers and teachers by inviting scholars, researchers and experts to share their practice, knowledge and experiences over an interactive dialogue. Over 10 episodes on Friday evenings, this series featured eminent speakers on a varied range of topics that engaged more than 160 attendees globally on a weekly basis. Read more.. Over the months of May to July, the ETHOS team curated a series of webcast session for Odissi students, performers and teachers by inviting scholars, researchers and experts to share their practice, knowledge and experiences over an interactive dialogue. Over 10 episodes on Friday evenings, Soumee De, curated and moderated this series with eminent speakers on a varied range of topics that engaged more than 160 attendees globally on a weekly basis. Originated at the onset of the pandemic related circuit breaker period at Singapore, these online webcast series aimed at building breadth and depth of knowledge from a variety of scholars. Please see below the episodes and a quick summary. • Episode 1: Sri Rahul Acharya on exploring the origin and history of Odissi dances • Episode 2: Dr Rekha Tandon on exploring dance as yoga and practices of embodying • Episode 3: Set Sonali Mishra on her journey as an odissi-nomad • Episode 4: Smt Swapnokalpa Dasgupta on demystifying Arts Management • Episode 5: Smt Indu Vijay on her practice of Yoga in dance • Episode 6: Dr Kaustavi Sarkar on Dance Education standards revisited • Episode 7: Dr Rohini Dandavate on Intercultural perspectives of traditional dance • Episode 8: Sri Sooraj Subramanian on his career journey with multiple dance forms and creating new works • Episode 9: Dr Ileana Citaristi on Jayadeva’s Geet Govind and Odissi • Episode 10: Dr Elena Catalano on Anthropology and Odissi Soumee shared that this series was curated keeping in mind the three E approach to dance training: Education, Exposure and Experience. While most of the weekly dance classes in the studios focus on embodying the experience of dance training, the lock down period inspired her to build on the Education & Exposure legs of dance training, outside of the classrooms. There were several knowledge sharing sessions that aimed at deepening the understanding of Odissi dance traditions, history, embodiment techniques, literary texts as educative sessions. There were other practical exposure related sessions to different aspects of dance training, learning and performing. From arts management to intercultural perspectives, from creating your own amalgam of organic works to applying yoga practice to overcome injuries and mindset issues- the ODE webcast series objectives were to provide holistic learning experience to Odissi learners, teachers and performers. Ethos would like to thank the speakers for their efforts in teaching generously despite the pandemic challenges. Gratitude to the ODE attendees who tuned in every Friday evening to actively participate in this interaction from around the globe and also donated generously so we could invest this back to the speakers for their contribution in creating learning value for all of us. Short trailers of the episodes are available on the You tube channel link: