Mitali Dev.

BIOGRAPHY

Mitali Dev is one of those few dancers who has had the priviledge of training in two of the most demanding classical Indian dance forms - Bharatnatyam and Odissi. From the tender age of 5, began the long and arduous training in Bharatnatyam which culminated in her Arangetram at the age of 12. Her life's great passion came to her at the age of 16 when she fell in love with Odissi and began her tutelage in this exquisite dance form under Sri Ramli Ibrahim at the Sutra Dance Academy in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, her hometown. Later on, she had trained from the great exponent Guru Madhavi Mudgal. She also trained at the Odissi Vision and Movement Centre in Kolkata from Smt Sharmila Biswas who has been a constant inspiration to Mitali.

The crown jewel of her training has been the time spent in Srjan, Bhuvaneswar initially under the tutelage of the late Padma Vibhusan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, in the months before the great Guru's demise and later under the able repliky hodinek aaa guidance of Smt Sujata Mohapatra, his daughter-in-law who is the torch-bearer and who epitomises the precision & beauty of the dance form as visualised by the late Guruji.

Her training has spanned nearly two decades providing a firm foundation for her distinguished career. She has performed at major dance festivals and venues across the world including Australia, the UK, the USA , Malaysia, Singapore and India. Recently, she was invited to dance at the famous Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia. A founder member of the North West Dance Alliance in the UK, Mitali, who resides in Manchester, is currently researching the folk aspects of Odissi dance especially Mahari, Gotipua and Chau with a view to enhance her repertoire.

She is also the artistic director of Nritya Kunj, an Indian classical dance ensemble purely for the propagation of Odissi in the UK.