Abstract

Dance is among the activities involved in the aesthetic activity (Mauss, 1947, 1970: 88), in the processus of artialization (a processus of stylization of the world) (Lipovetsky et Serroy, 2013: 15), in its anthropological and trans-historical dimensions. Between a memory of the past, sacred or (dis)regarded as sacred, reconstruction and de(construction), the Indian classical dance stands at the crossroad of multiple identities: ethnical, statal, national, international (Banerji, 2012, Behera, 2017, Catalano, 2014, Chakravorty, 2000, Dennen, 2010). In its reconstruction/reinvention process, during the 1950-60’s, based on what Smt. Kumkum Mohanty, Padma Shree (one of the major artists participating in this reconstruction) defines as “frozen past” (the sculpures on the temples in the eastern region of India called Orissa) and “alive memory” (the dance of the Maharis and the Gotipuas) (voir Mondal, 2011, Paikray, 2011, Sarkar, 2017), between tangible an intangible heritage, till the contemporary experiments (neo-classical dance/ballet), Odissi dance plays its identity in a dymanics always new, between tradition and innovation. It is the same for she/he who learns the Indian classical dance, finding herself/himself at an intersection of multiple identities, beyond which we can find in the practice a type of identity defined as devotional identity, a form of mediation of the sacred, in the experience of bhakti-rasa (Devaranjan, 2010, Cooper, 2013, Zubko, 2014).