Festivals & Folk Theatre of Odisha

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Back of the Book Manmath Kumar Satapathy was worked as a Secretary, Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi from 20084010. As a play wright, Cene-writer, Researcher, Author of books, Director of stage play he has established himself as one of the most outstanding personality in the field of "Natya Andolan" in Odisha State. During his long experience of 50 years he ha written 40 nos of plays for stage, Opera, Radio and for Odiya films.

For his outstanding merit he has achieved many laurels and honoured with Sahitya Akademi Award, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Rajadhani Pustakamela Award and also honoured by number of prestigious Cultural Institutions. He has awarded senior fellowship from Deptt. of Culture. New Delhi in the year 2008 to work on Folk Theatre of South Odisha. At present Sri Satapathy is devoted his time for revivial of dying Folk Art & Culture of Odisha.

About the Book Manmath Kumar Satapathy was delved into the history, Culture, religious practices, rituals and life style of ancient Odisha, particularly of South Odisha with due diligience. The narrative form, the processional form and the representational form gradually maturing into the theatrical presentation i.e. the one-man dance-narrative to the group performance have been traced in this book with scholarly dispassionateness. The Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and the mixed forms also have been discussed here with historical evidence. The evolution of the folk dance and folk theatre from the Harappan or Indus valley civilization through the vedic and Epic era to the modern times has been discussed with meticulous authenticity supported by pictorial representations.

The author has paid attention to minute details of the originality of the South Indian tradition and how the South Odishan tradition has enriched itself by local inventive variations. This book will be great help to scholars and practitioners f the folk theater - dance forms. I hope he discerning readers will find enough materials in this book for further research. ' I congratulate Sri Satapathy on his sincere and lucid presentation. I wish the book all success it deserves.

About the Author Sridhar Satapathy, father of Sri Manmath Ku. Satapathy was a famous Researcher on Bhanja literature and also a best astronomist.ln every evening, in his residence at Bhanja Nagar,there was a discussion on Bhanja literature and recital of Bhanja Sangeet among the rural pundits, that impacts and influences on Sri Manmath Ku. Satapathy at his tender age.

Initially from his childhood, he started acting in the rural Folk Play-'Dandanata'. Gradually, he directed the play. Since the birth place of Sri Satapathy is full of Folk Dance,Song & Theatre, he started writing folk-based play and staged at his own village, which was successfully presented and appreciated by the audience and drama lovers.

While he came in contact with Kabi Chandra Kalicharan Pattnaik, pioneer writer of stage plays, he started writing of play on the life style of rural people and the problems of low ranking people of Odisha.Since then,he has been writing more than 40 nos of plays for Stage,Opera,Radio and to his credit he has also written and directed some of the Odiya Film.

As a playwright, Cene-writer, Researcher, Author of books & director of stage play, he has established himself as one of the most outstanding personality in the field of "Natya Andolan" in Odisha State.

For his outstanding merit he has achieved many laurels and been honoured by nos. of prestigious cultural Institutions of the State. He has also been honoured with Sahitya Akademi & Rajadhani Pustakmela Award in the year -2002 for the play "Mu Chakara Kahuchi".He has got Odisha Sangeet Natak Award for the year 2011.He has Awarded senior fellowship from Dept. of Culture, New Delhi to research on Folk Theater of South Odisha during the period from 2008 - 2010 He has worked as a Secretary Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi from 2006 to 2009.

Foreword Creation began with a cosmic dance. The palasgenian myth suggests that the first life-form to emerge was that of a woman and she touched the amorphous things into shape. Life thus created was a dance of energy. The universe, say the physicists, is a dance of energy. Man's initial fear and uncertainty were transcended by the aesthetic expressions of his inner urge. Dance was a mimetic form depicting the symmetry of energies in the universe. The binaries of life; the sunrise-sunset, darkness-light, ebb-tide and birth-death contrastive rhythms were harmonized by dance, which is the harmonic expression of unarticulated energy.

We cannot say with certainty how this art form emerged when and where. But certainly it was before, music, painting and literature. Man's joy, fear, anger and other less defined emotions, before the invention of language, naturally were communicated through expressions on the face and movement of the body. Hence we may say that the dance form is the primordial art form to communicate feelings. Action, expression and later, symmetry, were the coordinated elements of this form. The form, however evolved in all countries over the centuries from the primitive wordless communication to the modern composite art form. Today dancing is rhythmic combination of music, light, costume, action and lyrics. But dancing is, perhaps, the most ancient art form which man created for mostly communication of wordless feelings.

India is arguably the most ancient human civilization which has preserved and protected its primitive forms of art, especially the dance form - despite the onslaughts of barbarism and foreign occupation over the centuries. India is the mother to this ' form as our ancient intellectuals found a synergy between the creation of the world and its representational, art form. Anand Kumar Swamy's Dance of Shiva and Fritj of Capra's perceptive essay of the same title have already shown the world how Indian Civilization chased all the mysteries of life with an insightful mind and harmonized the world of physical reality with mystical insights into the frame of things. Dancing for the Indians is the symmetrical assimilation of divine energy leading to creation. But how much before the Vedas, Upanishads and Epics the tribesmen and women living in the forests, mountains and even caves had their sense of reality in their faith systems and art forms. The evolution of the form, what we call today the folk art forms, must have taken centuries of unrecorded adventures of today. Today, however, the folk art, especially the folk dance forms are given some attention for it is competitively fashionable to export their displays and performances to claim a sort of hoary past of artistice glory. Be that what it may, the folk dance forms have now been recognized as the true expressions of unsophisticated man living in the jungles and small hamlets. Some of those forms are dead, some are dying and the folk too is now getting sophisticated to cherish its own heritage.

**Contents and Sample Pages**