IN: Yi Jianlian (simplified Chinese: Yi Jian Lian ; traditional Chinese: Yi Jian Lian ; pinyin: Yi Jianlian, pronounced [i tcjenljen], EE JEN lee-EN; born October 27, 1987) is a Chinese professional basketball player for the Guangdong Southern Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). He has also played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets, Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks. Yi joined the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the 2002-03 CBA season, and subsequently won the CBA Rookie of the Year award. In his first five years with Guangdong, the team won three CBA titles.

As a child, Yi's parents did not allow him to join a sports school, which is designed for children predicted to be future professional athletes. However, a sports school's basketball coach who noticed Yi's potential in playing street basketball persuaded Yi's family to allow him to train professionally. Hoping to sign Yi to an endorsement deal, Adidas invited him to attend the company's ABCD camp in New Jersey in 2002, where he competed against all-American high school players. After returning to China later that year, he signed a professional contract with Chinese Basketball Association side Guangdong Southern Tigers and averaged 3.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in his first season. He also averaged 7.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in four games during the playoffs, and won the Rookie of the Year award. Yi was featured in TIME's August 2003 article titled "The Next Yao Ming". In each of his next three seasons, Yi led Guangdong to the CBA championship and he was awarded the CBA finals' most valuable player honor in 2006. In Yi's final season in the Chinese Basketball Association before he entered the 2007 NBA draft, he averaged a career-high 24.9 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, but his team lost to the Bayi Rockets in the playoff finals. During the 2011 NBA lockout, Yi signed a one-year contract to return to the Guangdong Southern Tigers. Unlike most NBA players who went to the Chinese Basketball Association during that time, he received an option to return to the NBA once the lockout had been resolved. After the lockout ended, he signed with the Dallas Mavericks for the remainder of the 2011-12 season. Yi re-joined the Guangdong Southern Tigers for the 2012-13 CBA season and went on to win a fourth championship that season. In October 2016, Yi returned to Guangdong after spending training camp with the Los Angeles Lakers.

did he go?

OUT: he competed against all-American high school players.

IN: Odissi (Odia: odd'ishii Odisi), also referred to as Orissi in older literature, is a major ancient Indian classical dance that originated in the Hindu temples of Odisha - an eastern coastal state of India. Odissi, in its history, was performed predominantly by women, and expressed religious stories and spiritual ideas, particularly of Vaishnavism (Vishnu as Jagannath). Odissi performances have also expressed ideas of other traditions such as those related to Hindu gods Shiva and Surya, as well as Hindu goddesses (Shaktism). The theoretical foundations of Odissi trace to the ancient Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, its existence in antiquity evidenced by the dance poses in the sculptures of Odissi Hindu temples, and archeological sites related to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.

After 12th-century, Odia temples, monasteries and nearby institutions such as the Nalanda in eastern Indian subcontinent came under waves of attacks and ransacking by Muslim armies, a turmoil that impacted all arts and eroded the freedoms previously enjoyed by performance artists. The official records of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq's invasion in Odisha (1360-1361 CE), for example, describe the destruction of the Jagannath temple as well as numerous other temples, defacing of dancing statues, and ruining of dance halls. This led to a broad decline in Odissi and other religious arts, but there were some benevolent rulers in this period who supported arts particularly through performances at courts. During the Sultanate and Mughal era of India, the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts. They became associated with concubinage to the nobility. The Odissi dance likely expanded in the 17th century, states Alexandra Carter, under King Ramachandradeva's patronage. This expansion integrated martial arts (akhanda) and athletics into Odissi dance, by engaging boys and youth called Gotipuas, as a means to physically train the young for the military and to resist foreign invasions. According to Ragini Devi, historical evidence suggests that the Gotipuas tradition was known and nurtured in the 14th century, by Raja of Khurda. During the British Raj, the officials of the colonial government ridiculed the temple traditions, while Christian missionaries launched a sustained attack on the moral outrage of sensuousness of Odissi and other Hindu temple dance arts. In 1872, a British civil servant named William Hunter watched a performance at the Jagannath temple in Puri, then wrote, "Indecent ceremonies disgraced the ritual, and dancing girls with rolling eyes put the modest worshipper to the blush...", and then attacked them as idol-worshipping prostitutes who expressed their devotion with "airy gyrations". Christian missionaries launched the "anti-dance movement" in 1892, to ban all such dance forms. The dancers were dehumanized and stigmatized as prostitutes during the British period. In 1910, the British colonial government in India banned temple dancing, and the dance artists were reduced to abject poverty from the lack of any financial support for performance arts, combined with stereotyping stigma.

What role did the Odissi dancers play during the British rule?

OUT:
the temple dancers were moved to entertain the Sultan's family and courts.