Raaga Nritya Sanje, an evening of music and dance, will be held in Bangalore on Jan 21

Odissi dance and Thirthahalli? Not so far fetched for this young dancer, presenting an unusual event at Ravindra Kalakshetra, Bangalore on January 21.

The story behind Kalatheera and its founder, Uday Kumar Shetty, is unusual too. Now Guru Uday Kumar, he was 23 when he began searching for a dance teacher after watching an Odissi dance performance in his hometown in 1990. He was mesmerised by the music, the costumes, the steps and gestures and entire dance event itself.

He asked the danseuse Protima Bedi if he could become her student and she gave him the address of her dance village near Bangalore, Nrityagram. He was among her early students and soon chose dance as his destiny. A decade of learning under Protima and later under the great Odissi guru Kelucharan Mahopatra and his son, Ratikant Mahopatra, honed Uday's dancing skills. He was soon performing in India and abroad. In August 2000, he founded Kalatheera to propagate Odissi dance in this region. "The dance school has been inspired by the gurukula system, where a guru offers not only his skills and knowledge but his entire being and efforts, his affection and wisdom to his students,'' he explains. Kalatheera has an interesting variety of students from four-year-old girls to enthusiastic teenagers and professionals and homemakers, all learning with the same goal in mind.