Minati Mishra is an Indian classical dancer and actress, known for her expertise in the Indian classical dance form of Odissi. She is reported to be the oldest living Odissi performer. The Government of India honored Mishra in 2012, with the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri.

Biographie

Minati Sharma, née Minati Das, was born in 1937 in Cuttack, in the Indian state of Odisha, to Basanta Kumar Das, a local school headmaster, as the youngest of his three children. She started learning dance and music at an early age, theme based dance under the tutelage of Ajit Ghosh and Banabihari Maity and Odissi from Kabichandra Kalicharan Patnayak, a known Odissi dancer. In 1950, Sharma started learning under Kelucharan Mahapatra, the renowned Odissi Guru.

In 1954, Minati Sharma joined Kalakshetra of Rukmini Devi Arundale, on a scholarship from the Government of Odisha, and learned Bharatanatyam for one year under Kutty Sarada and Peria Sarada. The next year, she joined the Indian Institute of Free Arts for training under Panda Wallur Pillai Chukkalingam and Minakshi Sunderam Pillai and debuted in 1956, the first of the several performances she rendered, during the next three years, at a number of major cities in India. In 1959, she got an opportunity to perform in Switzerland, on invitation from the International Photographic Association, and performed in Zurich, Luzern, Geneva and Winterthur. Three years later, she was awarded a doctoral degree in Indology from the Philipp University of Marburg, Germany for a thesis she prepared on the topic, Natyashastra. The next year, she was invited for a performance at the Berlin Film Festival of 1963.

Minati Mishra has acted in five Oriya movies. The first among them, Surja Mukhi was released in 1963, followed by four more movies, Jeevan Sathi, Sadhana, Bhai Bhauja and Arundhati. All the movies, except Bhai Bhauja, received the National Film Awards for the best regional cinema. She also acted in a 1963 Bengali movie, Nirjana Saikate in which she has performed an Odissi dance number choreographed by Kelucharan Mahapatra. Apart from her film career, she has also been an A Grade artist at the All India Radio and is a recipient of Sangeet Prabhakar title for Hindustani vocal music.

Soon after the death of her husband, Nityananda Mishra, who was an engineer, in 1980, Mishra retracted from dance performances and formally retired in 1990. She is settled in Switzerland and devotes her time for dance festivals, lecture tours and workshops in Switzerland, Canada and India.