Till the first quarter of this century Odissi dance did not find its way into the Oriya society. Till then its bearers were the Maharis and the Gotipuas. Late Mohan Mohapatra of Hera Gouri Sahi, Puri was the last guru of the Maharis. He was also imparting training to the Akhada boys or the Gotipuas. When the dance by the Maharis in the temple of Lord Jagannath declined it is only the Gotipuas who carried the tradition. Till then no Guru was available to teach dance in Oriya homes or cultural institutions. In the Cuttack city (when it was the capital city of Orissa) two Bengali Gurus, Ajit Bose and Banabihari Maity were teaching dance in the Bengali Zamindar families and of some aristocratic Oriya families Smt. Minati Mishra and Smt. Priyambada Mohanty first learned the art of dancing from them. At that time the famous Odissi Gurus Pankaj Charan Das, Late Kelucharan Mohapatra, Late Debaprasad Das, Mayadhar Rout, Raghunath Dutta were serving in the professional theatres of Orissa either as dance-teachers or dancers.

The cultural rennaissance that took place after the attainment of independence, a number of cultural institutions came up in Orissa especially at Cuttack and Puri. As there were no professional Gurus available these dance-teachers and dancers came out of the theatres and started teaching - in the cultural institutions. In Utkal Sangeet Samaj, Cuttack and Sangeet Parishad, Puri Guru Pankaj Charan Das; in Kalavikash Kendra, Cuttack Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Sri Mayadhar Rout; in National Music Association Late Guru Debaprasad Das, and in Smruti Kala Mandap, Sri Batakrishna Sen started teaching dance. In addition to Odissi they were teaching little bit of Bharatnatyam, Kathak and Manipuri. Because the Guru of all these people was Dayal Sharan a disciple of Late Udayshankar who was sometime engaged as a dance-teacher in Annapurna theatre, Cuttack. This was the time of resurrection and revival of Odissi dance. At that time what was being presented as Odissi dance, its technique, style, costume, ornaments nothing was authentic. The Gurus were making their students dance by playing Dugi Tabla and singing was also done by them. There was no other instrumental accompaniment or repertory system. The whole performance was confined to ten or fifteen minutes.. Though Late Kalicharan Patnaik raised his voice for its acceptance as a classical school of dancing, it could not as it needed much effort and chastisement to attain the classical status.

In the year 1953 Late Rukmini Devi Arundale came to Orissa as Chief Guest to the Annual Function of the Kala Vikash Kendra, Cuttack. On this occasion Odissi was presented by Smt. Laxmi Devi, wife of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. When journalists sought opinion of Smt. Arundale on the dance she said `Oh, this is a poor imitation of Bharatnatyam'. Because the costume and ornaments Smt. Laxmipriya used were purely of SouthIndian style. After the significant remark of Smt. Arundale real research in Odissi Dance began. Sri Kalicharan Patnaik first initiated research into the real form and characterstics of Odissi Dance.

In the year 1954, the first Inter-University Youth Festival was organised at NewDelhi. In the Classical Dance Competition of the festival the writer joined as a competetor along with Smt. Priyambada Mohanty from the Utkal University. We both danced Odissi and were awarded second prizes. This was the first occasion when Odissi traveled outside Orissa and received much acclamation from the press. It was Dr. Charles Fabri, the dance-critic of the Statesman who wrote high of the dance and persuaded Indrani to learn it. Later she learned from Debaprasad and added Odissi to her repertory. But controversies gathered round Odissi as it was not fully and properly revived on the shastraic lines. Then the working Gurus became serious and left teaching other styles and concentrated on Odissi. Odissi started growing with new compositions along with old revivals and gradually attained the classical status.

Though the technique or the science of an art is the same, it differs on styles. The stylistic difference is seen in almost all the classical dance-forms of India. Creation of a new style is not possible on the part of every Guru. It always depends on the creative genius of a Guru who accepts the tradition and creates something new which is followed by others. The three eminent Gurus of Odissi, Pankajcharan, Kelucharan and Debaprasad, have their own distinctive styles. The style of Guru Pankajcharan is extremely graceful and lyrical which is followed by almost all the Gurus. Guru Kelucharan puts more emphasis on pure-dance and dance-movements in Abhinaya. Guru Debaprasad following the pure and simple style of the Gotipuas created a style of its own. These three styles created by the three eminent Gurus of Odissi are followed by all other Gurus.