Visual and Performing Arts in South Orissa: An Interface

The performing and the visual arts are an integral part of life in India. While the visual arts are more static in its expression, the performing arts add kinetics to it. Both are the expressive manifestations of creative ideas. These arts do have a continuity which flow through the traditions or a place and people. In their manifestations they touch upon society because it is only the people and their lifestyles which are at the very basis of the creative urge. Art whether, it was visual or performing, always aimed at serving the people and the society. The idea that the "art is for art’s sake" came much later. In the social implications arts have played a vital role both as a mode of living and entertainment. Study of art history is a recent phenomenon which has classified arts into different categories and phases. Thus, art came to be known as belonging to the tribe, rural people and to the urban settlers. Here, we focus our discussions on the folk which are rooted in the religious beliefs and practices of the rural people. They are highly symbolic as well as narrative in style. These arts are the overbearing human expressions as experiences in happiness and sorrow, victory and defeats, trials and tribulations through vicissitudes of time. They make history recorded in sculptures, paintings, wood carvings and various other art forms. The performing arts enacted, sung and performed provide dynamism to the paintings, sculptures and other rural arts. Both these forms are rooted in the tradition and voice the feelings and aspirations of the people. But the recorded history of these folk forms are rare since they depend on the creative ingenuity of the people who are always lively and bubbling with ideas. Orissa has a rich and varied tradition of rural arts and rural performances. Both stem from a settled economic condition based on agriculture. Agriculture provides the requisite leisure to the village people to create and to manifest themselves in a number of festivals, rituals and ceremonies. Therefore, the people who have slowly started specializing in those areas have been inducted into the social structure of the rural life. These specialized groups like painters, architects, masons, singers, dancers, and performers are also the farmers who depend on agriculture for their assistance.