Bijayini Satpathy in the Galleries_ Naino (Astor Chinese Garden Court)

Choreographed and performed by Bijayini Satpathy Music composed by Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy MetLiveArts 2021-22 Artist in Residence Bijayini Satpathy’s performances are inspired by—and take place in—various galleries engaging with each site’s architecture as well as its ancestry, stories, legends, and aesthetics that are so different from Odissi’s. For these site-specific creations, Satpathy collaborated with composer Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, who has moved the soundscape away from traditional Odissi music and into unconventional spaces. In “Naino,” a courtyard within a scholar’s garden in the city of Suzhou, China inspires a narrative exploration of a poem by Kabir, a 15th-century Indian mystic claimed by both Hindu and Islamic traditions. The poem is worldly and spiritual as it employs intimate, erotic speech that is typical to both the Sufi way of Islam and the Bhakti tradition of Hinduism. The speaker invites the beloved into their eyes, and from there into their inner landscape. The ideal here is to become one with the divine by taking in its magnificent vision. “This presentation sincerely acknowledges and marks my gratitude to the Mahari temple dancers and young Gotipua dancers of Odisha, whose contributions have made Odissi as loved and rich as it is today.” —Bijayini Satpathy