Trikāyā (Three Bodies) by Odissi exponent Bijayini Satpathy, does not set out to retell the Mahabharata, but explores three defining moments from the epic to address a question that has followed her across years of performance — how does a classical dance form, steeped in codified masculine and feminine vocabularies, imagine a body that exists beyond binaries? The work unfolds through Arjuna preparing for battle, Urvashi’s curse after her rejection, and Brihannala’s final dance before returning to the battlefield as Arjuna. Together, they become an inquiry into the gendered body in Odissi, where mythology serves not as narrative alone, but as a means to examine identity, desire and vulnerability.

The premise is intellectually layered, but Bijayini never allows scholarship to overpower performance. The three vignettes flow with emotional clarity, inviting audiences into the inner worlds of the characters even when they are unfamiliar with the epic. . What emerges is not merely a reinterpretation of the Mahabharata, but a reimagining of how classical dance itself can hold fluidity within form.

According to Bijayini, the work was born out of a question that lingered after years of performing across geographies. “I ask myself, what is the global audience seeing? Even if I give them a thread to follow, what are they really getting out of these shifts of character?”

For audiences unfamiliar with Indian mythology, she realised, the performance often transcended narrative understanding. That prompted her to delve deeper into the movement vocabulary of Odissi. If dancers routinely inhabit multiple characters without changing costume or appearance, why are certain postures still read as masculine and feminine? And what is the language of a body that exists outside such inherited binaries? These questions eventually led her to Brihannala, Arjuna’s identity during his exile, but not before they became deeply personal.

“I realised that playing Ravana lets me do things I was never allowed to,” says Bijayini. Growing up, anger was not an emotion girls were encouraged to express. “Girls don’t get angry. You can cry in your room, but don’t shout or scream,” she recalls being told. Dance, however, offered another possibility. “On stage, I have full licence to be who I am and to access different physical, emotional and internal spaces.”

That liberation quietly underpins Trikāyā. Rather than presenting Arjuna, Urvashi and Brihannala as fixed identities, Bijayini allows each character to emerge through shifts in energy, rhythm and intention. The performance resists easy definitions, inviting the audience to dwell in ambiguity instead. In doing so, Odissi opens up, not as a static tradition, but as a living language capable of questioning the very codes it has inherited.

If Trikāyā speaks of contemporary conversations around gender, Bijayini is careful not to frame it as advocacy. The work, she says, grew from an artistic inquiry into Odissi itself and its possibilities. “My investment is in dance. If the work makes someone rethink a belief or question a prejudice they hold, I’ll be happy. But I’m not creating choreography as an advocacy. Every work I make is, first and foremost, a study for me.”

That distinction gives Trikāyā its quiet confidence. Instead of prescribing answers, it invites audiences to sit with questions. Through Arjuna’s moral conflict, Urvashi’s humiliation and Brihannala’s final dance before returning to battle, Bijayini gently dismantles conventional notions of masculinity and femininity, revealing instead shared emotional landscapes beneath them.

Equally compelling is how the performance remains rooted in the grammar of Odissi even as it stretches its expressive boundaries. Familiar movement vocabularies are neither discarded nor rejected; instead, they are re-examined from within.

The intellectual rigour of Trikāyā is matched by the sensitivity of its collaborators. The choreography and performance by Bijayini sits in close dialogue with music by Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, whose compositions lend emotional depth without overwhelming the choreography. The mardala of Sibasankar Satapathy and the flute of Srinibas Satapathy create shifting textures that move between contemplation and tension. Lighting by Deepa Dharmadhikari gently sculpts the stage, while dramaturgy by Poorna ensures conceptual clarity.

The production also reflects the spirit of G5A’s In Residency programme, which allowed the work to evolve through workshops, open rehearsals and audience conversations.

As Trikāyā draws to a close, the conversation gradually shifts away from gender as the central frame. The warrior awaiting battle, the apsara confronting rejection, and the dancer navigating multiple identities cease to remain mythological constructs alone. They become recognisably human.

“We all wonder: Am I visible? Am I loved? Am I isolated?” Bijayini says. “The characters become a way for us to access something much deeper within ourselves.” That, perhaps, is Trikāyā’s most enduring gesture.

Rather than modernising mythology, it demonstrates how a classical form can evolve from within. In Bijayini’s hands, Odissi becomes a space where inherited vocabularies are questioned with care, where movement transcends binaries, and where empathy ultimately proves more powerful than identity.