Minati Mishra was associated with which dance form?

Explanation

Minati Mishra (1929-2012) was a well-known Odissi dancer, teacher and scholar from Odisha. She was one of the early women dancers of Odissi in the period of its revival in the 1950s and 1960s.

Minati Mishra was born in Cuttack, Odisha. She learnt Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra in Chennai, under Rukmini Devi Arundale, before returning to Odisha and learning Odissi from gurus of the revival period, such as Guru Pankaj Charan Das and Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. She became one of the early women dancers to perform Odissi on stage and helped to establish it as a classical dance. She was also a scholar, with a doctorate, and she served as the principal of the Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya in Bhubaneswar, an important institution for the teaching of music and dance in Odisha. She performed in India and abroad and acted in Odia films. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Odissi.

Odissi is the classical dance of Odisha. In the first half of the 20th century, the dance traditions of the maharis (temple dancers) and gotipuas (boys dressed as girls) had declined. In the 1950s and 1960s, gurus and scholars, especially through the Jayantika association, worked to revive and reconstruct the dance. The early women dancers who performed Odissi in this period, such as Laxmipriya Mohapatra, Sanjukta Panigrahi, Priyambada Mohanty Hejmadi, Minati Mishra and Kumkum Mohanty, played an important role in establishing Odissi as a classical dance. Other famous Odissi dancers include Sonal Mansingh, Madhavi Mudgal and Sujata Mohapatra.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Kathak is the classical dance of North India.
• ✗Manipuri is the classical dance of Manipur.
• ✗Kathakali is the dance-drama of Kerala.
• ✗Good to know
• ✗Minati Mishra is not associated with any of these.