Kumkum is a retired government officer who never let her dancing passion die. She researched and studied Odissi dance and is also a Guru in the same field.

Kumkum Mohanty is an Odissi dancer, performer, and guru. Earlier, she  served as a Special Secretary, Culture and Chief Executive of Odissi Research Centre.

Kumkum was born in Cuttack. For almost two and a half years of age, she couldn’t speak. One day, her father asked her to sing a song. She sang many songs that day and his father recognized her inclination toward art. He admitted her to Kala Vikas Kendra and Kumkum started training under Padma Vibhushan Kelu Charan Mahapatra. She learned dance and music from him for six years and then started training at home.

Kumkum shares that her father was very strict about education and used to threaten her that her dance practice would be stopped if she didn’t do well in her studies. This way, Kumkum also remained perfectly sound in her studies. During her post graduation, her guru was invited to attend the All India Seminar on Geet Govind. Her guru requested her father to let Kumkum accompany him and to the surprise of her life, her father agreed.

Kumkum says that this was the turning point in her life. She started getting more programs and got a chance to perform with Yamini Krishnamurthy at the All-India Dance Festival, in Delhi.

Kumkum cleared her post-graduation and got a lectureship at Government Women’s College, Cuttack. During that time, she was invited by the ICCR to perform in Russia. However, her father kept a condition in front of her. He asked her to appear in the UPSC examination if she desired to perform in Russia. Kumkum says that she was so adamant to perform, that she cleared the written examination with just one month of studies. She requested the UPSC to take her interview early as she had to go to Russia. During the interview, she was asked by the panel why she wanted to come into service when she was already an internationally acclaimed artist. Kumkum replied that it was her father who wanted it. Kumkum says that the panel decided to just give her three out of three hundred marks so that she could continue her dancing journey but she had performed so well in the written examination that she cleared it.

In 1970, she joined All India Services and during her training in Mussoorie, she was awarded the All India Best Officer’s Medal. She joined the Indian Postal Service after training and her dance stopped for a while.

Kumkum shares that it was when her husband, who was a collector, was organizing a fundraising event in Rourkela and requested her to perform when she again started dancing. Meanwhile, Kumkum also noticed the lack of good academic work on Odissi dance culture. Hence, she decided to do some research work on Odissi dance.

Kumkum prepared a scheme for the documentation, codification, dissemination, and notation of the Odissi dance form and gave it to the Department of Research. It was so good that she was brought to Odisha on deputation and the Odissi Research Centre was established.

Within the span of two years, she published a book by the name Odissi Dance Pathfinder. The CM of Odisha, J.B. Patnaik was so impressed by her work that he asked her to join the Odisha government, which she did.

Kumkum says that she has learned three very important things in life: discipline from her father, subtlety from her mother, and perfection from her guru.

Talking about her mistakes, Kumkum says that being outspoken and saying what her heart felt was her mistake which made her somewhat unpopular within her circles.

When asked about her accomplishments, Kumkum says that she has received many awards but the praise and acknowledgment that she receives after her performances is her real accomplishment in life.

Advising budding aspirants in the field, Kumkum says that they should not forget the tradition, the grammar of Odissi dance, the costume of Odissi performances, do ‘Saadhana’ regularly, and learn from a guru for a long time. She also advises them to have a reasonable knowledge of music as it is very important for an artist to learn music.

Kumkum says that everyone should do something in life and keep dancing as a passion. Dance as a career is not that well-paying and when you commercialize the art it results in loss of quality.