Kumkum Mohanty helped shape Odissi. Now she is wearily watching it change

It is only half in jest that Kumkum Mohanty rues the absence of an equivalent of the Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code in classical dance. “All this jumping around to excite and impress audiences, it is criminal,” she said.

At 77, the Odissi stalwart and currently the oldest dancer of the form is an unapologetic traditionalist. Watching modern-day Odissi is a trial, she says: the experiments, the demands of limbered athleticism and the new-fangled music featuring western instruments get on the nerves.

“I avoid going to Odissi recitals because whenever I do, I get sleepless nights,” she said, her expressive face registering dramatic dismay. “It is the mosaic of its grammar that gives classical dance its identity. We need to respect that. Our gurus saw Odissi as a graceful form. Where is the need to bring in all this energy?”

In a world restless for change, there is a reason why Mohanty sees virtue in staying prescriptive. It was she who, working with the early masters of Odissi, first documented the form’s grammar and vocabulary in its earliest two-volume primer, The Odissi Dance Pathfinder. More importantly, she came into the dance in the late 1950s, a time when it had just transitioned from an inchoate repertoire...

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