Odissi dancer Mayadhar Raut dies at 92

Odissi dance Guru Mayadhar Raut. File.
| Picture Credit score: R.V. Moorthy

Famend Odissi dancer Mayadhar Raut (92) died on Saturday (February 22, 2025) at his Delhi house, his son Manoj Raut stated.

“He had breakfast this morning, surrounded by his grandchildren and the remainder of the household. He wasn’t experiencing any sicknesses and handed away as a result of previous age,” Mr. Raut stated.

The final rites shall be carried out on the Lodhi Street crematorium on Saturday.

The Padma Shri awardee, born on July 6, 1933 in Odisha, is taken into account the “Father of Odissi dance”, having steered the revival of Odissi in Fifties with Shastra-based data.

His coaching to develop into one of many foremost artistes of the dance kind started on the age of seven with studying the Gotipua dance kind, a precursor to the classical Odissi dance.

Raut was the primary to current the Gotipua dance on stage in 1944.

Later, he labored to codify, redefine and restructure Odissi dance to get it the standing of a “shastra-based classical dance kind”.

Raut was a founding member of Kala Vikas Kendra in Cuttack in 1952; it was the primary institute in India the place Odissi was taught.

Alongside together with his colleagues, he based Jayantika Affiliation in 1959, to work on the codification and improvement of Odissi dance and supply it with classical frameworks and constructed its vocabulary, incorporating fundamental sciences of ‘Abhinaya’.

Raut is credited to have launched ‘Sanchari Bhava’, ‘Mudra Viniyoga’, and ‘Rasa Concept’ within the research of Odissi.

He was additionally the primary guru to choreograph Gitagovinda Ashtapadis with Shringara Rasa, together with compositions like Pashyati Dishi Dishi, Priya Charu Shile and Sakhi.

From 1970 to 1995, Raut headed the Odissi division at Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra. Delhi’s well-known Kamani Auditorium was inaugurated with the efficiency of his Gitagovinda in 1971.

A few of his disciples embrace famend Odissi dancers, together with Ramani Ranjan Jena, Aloka Panikar, and Geeta Mahalik.

For his in depth work within the subject of Odissi dance, Raut was given Orissa Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1977), Sahitya Kala Prishad Award (1984), Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1985), Rajeev Gandhi Sadbhavana Award (2003), Upendra Bhanja Samman (2005), and Tagore Akademi Ratna (2011) amongst others.

He’s survived by his daughter and Odissi dancer Madhumita Raut, and sons Manoj Raut and Manmath Raut. His spouse Mamta Raut died in 2017.