Ileana Citaristi’s answer is hopeful but unfinished: dancers from different traditions may find common ground through honest encounters, shared practice and attention to one another as people—not by erasing cultural difference or inventing a single universal style. Her essay grows out of the East-West Dance Encounter, which a later republication dates to January 22–29, 1984.
What Citaristi means by “common ground”
In her essay, Citaristi starts with a question: “Is a universal dance beyond geography, languages, costumes, themes and denominations no more possible?” She does not offer a new dance vocabulary that would make those differences disappear. Instead, she asks whether artists can meet across them, learning through shared work and experience.
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That distinction matters. “East” and “West” are broad labels, not descriptions of every dancer within them. Citaristi moves from comparing regional conventions toward the individual artist, whose body, training and choices are shaped by a particular cultural context. As she puts it: “The focus should shift towards the artiste as a human being, the genuineness and sincerity of his involvement and dedication, the truth and coherence in his life and work.”
What she observed at the East-West Dance Encounter
Citaristi describes contrasts she noticed in costume, bodily emphasis, musical phrasing and expressive convention. Her account includes differences in how dancers use the face and limbs, how much of the body costume reveals, and how movement relates to rhythm. These are observations from a particular encounter, not measurements that define all Indian or Western dance.
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She also sees a shared condition beneath those contrasts: both groups are shaped by sustained training. The point is not that the traditions are identical, or that one is more developed. Each carries forms, disciplines and expectations that can both enable an artist and set limits on what feels possible.
Tradition, experimentation and an artist’s choices
Citaristi worries about two opposite risks. An artist may repeat inherited forms mechanically, preserving their surface while losing a living connection to them. Or an artist may chase novelty and technical display without emotional depth. For her, neither fidelity nor experimentation is valuable on its own; the question is whether the work remains connected to the artist’s experience and purpose.
She writes about a disagreement with her guru over appearance and the expectations placed on women dancers. Citaristi says that she changed her life at that point. This is her account of a personal decision, not a general description of Odissi teachers, dancers or women in India. Her reflection on tradition is similarly individual: “The present choice is not imposed on me, and I am ready to go beyond it as soon as it becomes unrelated to whatever I project into it.”
Why she calls for encounters beyond the stage
Performances and discussions can introduce artists to one another, but Citaristi’s proposal goes further: encounters should include shared life and work. Sustained contact, in her view, gives dancers a chance to understand how another artist thinks and practices, rather than treating a different tradition as an image to borrow or a style to imitate.
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That is an aspiration in the essay, not a claim that an established program has produced a universal dance. It also leaves an open question: “Can a free dance exist in a traditionally settled society?” Citaristi’s essay explores the tension between inherited forms and freedom without claiming there is one answer for every artist.
From an artistic ideal to organized exchange
Citaristi’s later work offers concrete settings for exchange, though not proof that her ideal has been fully achieved. Art Vision says it was founded in 1996 by Citaristi and artists from different disciplines to share experience and creative ideas; its academy offers classes in Odissi and Chhau. A 2023 account of its Sangam Festival describes pairings of Odissi with other Indian classical forms and places the festival’s start in 2005. These are examples of organized artistic contact, not evidence that a single cross-cultural dance has emerged.
Art Vision describes Citaristi as an Italian-born Odissi and Chhau dancer. The India Habitat Centre’s 2021–22 annual report says she is based in Bhubaneswar and became the first dancer of foreign origin to receive the Padma Shri, in 2006, for contributions to Odia culture. Those details frame her long engagement with Indian dance, but the essay’s argument rests on personal reflection rather than biography alone.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When and where the essay appeared
Scroll published the essay on November 12, 2017, and says it first appeared in ON Stage, the National Centre for the Performing Arts’ official monthly magazine. A Narthaki republication identifies the East-West Dance Encounter as taking place January 22–29, 1984, and says the essay was written after the event and published in the NCPA Quarterly Journal in June 1984. The accounts differ on the first publication venue, so the publication history is best attributed to each source rather than treated as settled.
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Read and explore further
- Read Citaristi’s essay on Scroll.
- Find the Narthaki republication.
- Learn about Art Vision’s work and classes; current class availability should be confirmed with the organization.
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