 |
|
 Sapphire’s PATTON Quarterly Arts Series - Sulagna Mukhopadhyay e-mail: sulagna64@gmail.com Pics courtesy: Sapphire Creations May 6, 2013 Using a studio as a space for dance performance is no new idea. But merging the performance with an exhibition of photographs is perhaps a new concept shared by Sapphire Dance Company with its audience in Kolkata. Titled ‘My breath on canvas,’ the photographs by Hyderabad based eminent photographer Ranjit Sinha showcased a montage of the performances by members of the Company for the last ten years. It was a three-day program held at Ahuja Art Museum between March 21 and 24. The exhibition was inaugurated by Aroop Biswas, Honorable Minister of Youth Welfare Services and Guest of Honour was Jogen Chowdhury. The dancers engaged themselves into movements which struck a balance between the space, mind and body. The pieces were duet, trio and also ensemble. It was followed by actress Sudipta Chakraborty’s monologues from the famous one-act play ‘Aporajito’ by Tripti Mitra. The evening concluded with a few soulful renderings by Soumitra Ray of Bhoomi.
The following day kicked off with the power packed performance by a duo from Attakkalari Bengaluru, namely Diya Naidu and Ronita Mukherjee who showed excerpt from their work ‘Bardo Beings’ which was choreographed by Diya Naidu under the Young Choreographers’ Program in Attakkalari. The performance used weight sharing and release technique with ease. The agility and strength of the performers awed the audience. It was followed by Anindita Sarbadhicari’s monologue drawn from ‘Mirror Mirror on the Wall’ where she chose the story of a transgendered man Aasha, and expressed her dilemma of being trapped in a man’s body and living a dual life. Actress Deblina Dutta amazed the audience with her work on body and text inspired by her serial ‘Sakhi’ where she showed the entrapment of self and a conversation of her inner voice using a rope in a very intelligent way. The second evening of the Quarterly Series ended with a retrospective of dance choreographies of past Quarterlies of Sapphire like ‘Emotica,’ a solo by Ankita showing her journey in life and the myriad hues of emotions that one encounters, ‘Incompleteness’ (a group work by Sapphire company about the dissatisfaction that we all have within us and how we come to terms with it) and lastly ‘Aspiration’ (A take on the new-age generation who are high fliers and have time for none. They are chasing their own intangible dreams and at times succumb to the pressure of life, yet it’s the same human spirit that rejuvenates us and makes our lives meaningful). Dancers were Ankita Duttagupta, Koushik Das, Pintu Das, Rahul Debsaha and Manik Paul. The evening on 23 March began with the phenomenal Lopamudra Mitra who echoed the emotions of human relationships and fragility as reflected in the stillness of the photographs of the exhibition with her songs, followed by Anindya Chattapadhyay of Chandrabindoo with his signature style. The uniqueness of this event was that, lot of artists who came to visit the gallery took part in this interactive session with their music and songs like Upali Chattapadhyay and Sasha Ghosal. The evening came to an end with interactive Latin Dance Sessions with DNA Danceworks (Amit & Dorothy). The final day had only the photography exhibition.
Sulagna Mukhopadhyay was trained in Bharatanatyam by Guru Thankamani Kutty and Indian folk by Late Botu Pal. She has an M.A. in Comparative Literature and has freelanced for various leading newspapers of Kolkata like The Telegraph, The Statesman and Ananda Bazar Patrika. She has written articles on dance and gender issues. She is a teacher of South Point School since 1996. | ||||||||||||
 |
 |
