Through ballet Italian Odissi dancer salutes Mother Teresa

"I am inspired by Mother Teresa. Her compassion and love for people moves me to seek the role that I must play in society through my ballet," Citaristi, a Padmashree, who like the nun left her country to settle in India, told PTI here.

Citaristi, who arrived in India in 1973 and subsequently settled in Orissa in 1979, had visited 'Nirmal Hriday', Mother Teresa's home for dying destitutes located near the Kalighat temple in Kolkata, but did not get an opportunity to meet the nun herself.

"During my researches on Mother Teresa I found that she had come to be accepted by priests of the Kalighat temple for her service to the poor. She truly broke through the barriers of religion," says Citaristi, who plays the nun in the 35-minute ballet, 'Karuna'.
The performance, says Citaristi climaxes with people shedding their indifference to the sick and poor portrayed by other actor-dancers who emulate her movements on the stage.

Asked whether she identified with the nun since she too had left her home, she says, "To an extent yes. There is the feeling that despite the security of home and the known world, when you leave, it is not scary to face the insecurity of the future.

"Mother Teresa left her country, then her convent and landed on the streets of Kolkata to start from scratch to serve the people.""The body language of Kathakali drew me to this land," says Citaristi, who left a career in theatre in Italy after she witnessed a Kathakali recital there.

She settled first in Baripada in Orissa to learn Mayurbhanj chhau, a martial folk dance form under Guru Shri Hari Nayak and then Odissi under the late legendary Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra.

The Italian danseuse who has now made the city her home, speaks fluent Oriya and has a number of youngsters training under her in both the dance forms.She has also authored a book "The Making of a Guru" on Kelucharan Mohapatra.