Dance is a Conversation Between Body And Soul
“Kalamandalam Swarnadipa Mahanta”
At present, Swarnadipa Mahanta is a renowned name among the people who love classical dance form. She is capable of performing more than one dance form. She trained in Kathak from the year 1987 to 1990. For the next ten years (1990-2000) she took training in Bharatnatyam which is another widely popular dance form. While training for Bharatnatyam she grew her fondness to the Keralian dance form, Mohiniyattam and followed her passion. After completing the school in 2000, she went to Kerala and joined Kalamandalam where she learnt the strokes and perfected her dance moves.
In her dancing career she has choreographed dances in big events. Not only in India, she also performed abroad in countries like Germany, Russia and Qatar. Currently she is teaching at Nritya Britti Batayan in West Bengal where she passed her knowledge about the dance forms she learnt in the past.
Key Responsibilities
- After training for several years in Rabindra Nritya, Najrul Nritya, Kathak, Bharatnatyam; she was moved by the mohiniyattam dance style and decided to learn that dance form.
- To learn Mohiniyattam she travelled to Kerala, India and Kalamandalam in Kelara welcomed her and she learned the dance form by dancing in the original Malayalam songs.
- Before travelling to Kerala, where she learned Mohiniyattam under Guru Kalamandalam Pushpalata; she took training from Guru Manisha Bhattacharya to master her skills in Kathak. For Bharatanatyam she went to Guru Kalamandalam T Shankara Narayan who is the current principal of Sangeet Bhavan of Biswavarati at Santiniketan, West Bengal.
- The same Guru who taught her Mohiniyattam also taught her Kuchipudi.
- After completing her four years training in Mohiniyattam, to sharpen her skills and to master the emotions on the face which is a very important part of Mohiniyattam dance form, she took special classes from Guru Pallavikrishnan.
- Currently she is also under training as she believes in the concept that learning never stops. The name of her current dancing guru is Dr. Guru Smt. Thankamani Kutty.
- Apart from dancing, she is also trained in Martial Arts for self defence. Not only that she also satisfied her creative mind by learning folk dance and creative dance.
- She performed and participated in both Navratri Festival in Gujarat and Konark Festival in Odisha in the year 2006. In the later one she joined forces with Pallavi Krishnan.
- She is a graded artist of Doordarshan Kendra, Kolkata and also performed for Doordarshan Kendra, Kerala in 2008.
- Swarnadipa performed in the Uday Shankar Dance Festival Kolkata more than once and also took part in the Vysakhi Nrityotsav 2011 in Visakhapatnam.
- When World Tourism Day was celebrated in Hyderabad she choreographed dance drama ‘Uttaran’.
- In 2014 and 2015 she participated in the biggest Mohiniyattam dance event which is Mohiniyattam Dance Festival at Birla Academy, Kolkata.
- She performed a tribute dance for popular actress Sharmila Tagore in the 2nd Durgapur Film Festival.
- Swarnadipa also performed Mohiniyattam, Kathakali and Kuchipudi dances at Khurda Loko Utsav, Rann Festival, Gujrat, in Kanyashree Diwas function, West Bengal, Kalpadeep Dance Festival at Jalpaiguri and in many other places.
- The dancer presented the art at international level first in Germany, where she did shows at cities like Frankfurt, Koln, Berlin etcetera in between 2008 to 2010. In the time period she also conducted a few workshops there. After that she also visited Russia in 2017 for performing and conducting workshops. Her latest achievement is that she performed in the Bharat Utsav in Doha, Qatar in 2019.
Early Life and Education
Swarnadipa was born in the year 1984. Her birth date is 13th February. As she was born in the city of Kolkata, she first learned how to dance on rabindra sangeet. She started dancing at a tender age of 3. From childhood she also started taking training in Kathak dance form. Along with these two dance forms she also mastered her skills in Nazrul Nritya and Bharatnatyam. In her early life she also took guidance from Guru Itusree Mahanta for recitation and drama. She completed her schooling from West Bengal and in the year 2000 she passed the secondary examination. After that she pursued higher studies, but she mixed her passion with study and chose to do a diploma in Mohiniyattam and Kuchipudi dance forms from Kalamandalam Deemed University, which is a renowned university in the state of Kerala. She completed the course in a four year time span from 2002 to 2006. During this course she came close to Gurus like – Kalamandalam Padmini, Kalamaadalam Leelamma, Kalamaadalam Hymavathi, Kalamaadalam Pushpalata, Kalamaadalam Rajalekshmi and many others. She also received national scholarships for learning Mohiniyattam in between 2002 and 2004 and for Kuchipudi in between 2005 and 2007.
Key Achievements
She received many awards in her illustrated dancing career. Swarnadipa was awarded with the Bangla Addithiya by Shalimar Anand Bazar in 2002. The following year she received the best young talent award at Doverlane Music and Dance Competition in Kolkata. On the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary in the year 2012 she performed non stop for 26 hours to create a Guinness Book of World Record in 2010. She was also selected as Best Durga by Star Ananda satellite channel in 2012.
