Sanjukta Panigrahi: Dancer for the Gods

The great classical Indian dancer and co-founder of the International School of Theatre Anthropology, Sanjukta Panigrahi, died in June 1997. An outstanding exponent – and virtually the rediscoverer – of Odissi dance, Sanjukta Panigrahi was born in Orissa into a Brahmin family, and defied the prejudice of her caste as the first girl to pursue Odissi dance as a career. With the support of her family, she began studying at the age of five under the guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, with whom she worked for many years, and also trained in Bharata Natyam for six years with the master Rukmini Devi. Julia Varley, an Odin Teatret actress since 1977, knew and worked with Sanjukta for twenty years, and in the following article offers her memories and reconstruction of the experiences of apprenticeship, performance, technique, cultural exchange, teaching, and family and work relationships, both in India and within the multicultural context of ISTA. Sanjukta's own descriptions of her life and work, drawn from a wide variety of sources, are interspersed throughout the article, in an attempt to keep alive this remarkable actress/dancer's way of thinking and being, coloured by her particular female strength. Julia Varley was born in London in 1954, spent her childhood in Milan, joined Odin in 1976, and has been a participant in the ISTA sessions since their conception in 1980.