Oopali Operajita

Oopalee Operajita (also spelled Oopali Operajita) is a classical Odissi and Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer. As well as the chair and founder of the Al Gore Sustainable Technology Venture Competition. The competition is named for former U.S. vice president Al Gore but operates without his involvement.

Education and career

Operajita went to Rishi Valley School at age six, and studied there for nine years, graduating with the GCE 'O' levels (Indian School Certificate). At Rishi Valley School, she studied Bharatanatyam of the Pandanallur style. A team from Bangladesh, and another from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) took first and second prizes in 2011.

Together with her parents, Operajita translated Gopinath Mohanty's Amrutara Santāna into English. The translation, published in 2015, is called, Amrutara Santāna: The Dynasty of The Immortals.

Dance

Having trained under Kelucharan Mohapatra and Deba Prasad Das, Operajita has performed worldwide. The New York Times has called her one of Mohapatra's "star pupils."

She is the first classical Indian artist to have performed at the Carnegie Music Hall in Pittsburgh. She served as the artistic director and choreographer for a concert India's president hosted for US president Barack Obama in 2010. Her dance performance with Kelucharan Mohapatra was ranked as one of the top 10 Pittsburgh classical dance performances of 1996 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

As a classical dancer, she was cast in the dance dramas in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil, staged each year under the school's banyan tree for its founder, Jiddu Krishnamurti. The music for these productions was composed by Veena G Visalakshi, a disciple of Vizianagaram Venkataramana Das, and the text was chosen or composed by Pandit Chundi Hanumantharao. Operajita studied the veena for seven years and Carnatic vocal music for nine years with Veena G Visalakshi.