A film about the master of Indian Orissi dance, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Bhavantarana is a mixture of documentary and feature film; it is based on the master’s dances arranged for the camera. Shahani payed great attention to choosing locations where the dances were to be performed and the time. For instance the master sometimes danced in bright daylight on a beach at the high-tide mark, sometimes as the sun came up in an old temple and sometimes at night under a huge tree.Shahani looks at other art forms in his film as well as the life and work of the dance guru Mohapatra. A sculptor works on a so-called abhinaya, a statue of Mohapatra, in traditional style, in which his dance discipline acquires concrete form. The music is very important for the dance. A composition by the famous flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia and Mohapatra himself on the traditional pakhavaj reveals, according to Shahani, ‘the Self in those nine manifestations that Indian poetry has found “within the lotus of the heart”‘.The film embroiders forth on one of Shahani’s earlier films, Khayal Gatha (which won the Fipresci Prize in Rotterdam two years ago). Khayal Gatha was described in reviews as the firsttruly oriental film in the world and in Bhavantarana pursues this line; he tries to capture traditionally eastern Orissi dance in an eastern form. It has been written of the Khayal Gatha: ‘It transforms traditional artistic disciplines into a splendid cinematographic creation’ and that can certainly also be said of Bhavantarana. The meticulous way in which Shahani treats the film medium can be compared with the control, suppleness and perfection of the dance master.
