Born: Unknown (circa 1970), India
Died: NA
Country most active: India, United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Bijayini Satpathy made her debut as a choreographer in her 50s with ABHIPSAA—a seeking in 2021. According to the New England Foundation for the Arts, which supported the project through a grant,
Satpathy expands the parameters of the formal and representational norms of the Odissi tradition through both narrative and non-narrative dances—reimagining classical Odissi forms through modern interpretation. The foremost global master of Odissi, Satpathy takes the audience on a profoundly personal journey. In collaboration with musicians, composers, lighting and theatrical designers, ABHIPSAA—a seeking is an otherworldly and transformative evening of dance.
Odissi is an ancient Indian art form that combines Hindu religious and spiritual storytelling with music and dance. Satpathy began studying Odissi when she was seven and spent 25 years at the Nrityagram Dance Village. “As soon as I walked into that place,” she has said, “I knew, this is what I want to do.” She spent 20 of those years as a teacher as well as principal dancer and soloist with the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, before embarking on her new path as a choreographer in 2018. As she told The New York Times, she felt “a strong urge to push into an untouched and underexplored dimension” of her artistry “before it was too late.”
In addition to the New York premiere of ABHIPSAA—a seeking, the production would go on to tour around the world to acclaim from critics and audiences. Satpathy conducted a residency at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021-2022, where she “extends her solo explorations of classical Odissi style, pushing at its borders in response to the art around her,” said The New York Times. Other roles include the 2023-24 fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU and a scholar in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency 2024, furthering her research of Odissi training pedagogy. She also continues to be a popular and respected teacher internationally and has been the recipient of various honors including the Bessie Award in 2020, the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar by the Ministry of Culture, and the Nritya Choodamani title from Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai. When she received a Dance Magazine Award in 2023, the publication observed, “When Bijayini Satpathy dances, the atmosphere shifts … Her onstage world envelopes everything, leaving only her mesmerizing performance in focus.”