Vishwarupa: Dance as remembrance

- Rashmita Adhikari
e-mail: punarjjaniculturalcentre@gmail.com
Photo credit: Yougesh Sharma

December 22, 2025

Some performances stay with you not because of grand moments or technical brilliance alone, but because of how quietly they settle into your thoughts. Vishwarupa, presented by the Avartanam School of Dance, was one such evening. Staged on 14 December 2025 at the C.D. Deshmukh Auditorium, India International Centre, Delhi, and curated by Radhika Sengupta, the production did not announce itself loudly. Instead, it invited the audience to enter slowly, to listen, to watch, and to feel. The evening was conceived not as a series of separate dance pieces, but as a continuous journey where one moment flowed into the next. At its heart, Vishwarupa was a tribute to Guru Swagata Sen Pillai, and this remembrance formed the emotional core of the evening.

Swagata Sen Pillai's influence was deeply felt in the values that shaped the production, even without being explicitly stated. A Kalakshetra alumna, she devoted her life to Bharatanatyam as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and cultural thinker, approaching the art with discipline, sensitivity, and quiet conviction. Her choreographic work, which includes over thirty dance-dramas and numerous classical items, was marked by literary depth and narrative clarity. Working across multiple Indian languages, she brought together text, movement, and meaning in a way that made classical themes accessible without diluting their rigour.

In 1991, she founded Kinkini Dhvani, which went on to become a respected centre for Bharatanatyam in the NCR. Through this institution, she trained and mentored generations of dancers, emphasising consistency, thoughtful practice, and respect for lineage. For her students, learning was never limited to mastering technique; it was also about understanding context, responsibility, and the role of the artiste in society.

Beyond the stage and the classroom, Swagata Sen Pillai was deeply engaged with the wider cultural world. Her interest in language, education, and social issues informed the way she thought about dance as a living, responsive art form. For more than two decades, she remained committed to nurturing young minds, and it was this holistic vision of art and life that continued to echo through the evening. Fluent in several languages, she worked as a storyteller, translator, and social researcher, bringing a broad intellectual perspective to her artistic practice.

This was reflected in Vishwarupa through its use of compositions in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Bengali, allowing different cultural voices to coexist within the same narrative. The production trusted the audience to listen across languages, finding continuity in emotion and movement rather than in words alone. The programme agenda was thoughtfully structured, allowing the audience to move seamlessly through layered emotional and narrative spaces.

The choreographies for the production, by Guru Swagata Sen Pillai and Radhika Sengupta, explored shakti through the narratives of three warrior goddesses: Devi Meenakshi, Devi Bhairavi, and Devi Kali. These were not treated as isolated mythological episodes but were woven together to reflect continuity and transformation. Senior Bharatanatyam exponent Priya Venkataraman, who attended the performance, observed that the pieces were thoughtfully chosen and well connected. She acknowledged the effort involved in conceptualising and executing a production of this scale and appreciated the clarity with which it was carried through. Kalakshetra alumna Uma Ponaccha remarked on the steady energy that ran through the evening and noted that the choreographies remained true to the Kalakshetra bani while allowing space for interpretation and growth.

As the evening progressed, Vishwarupa revealed itself as more than a commemorative presentation. The tribute to Swagata Sen Pillai was evident not through overt symbolism, but through the values embedded in the work, as the evening became a shared moment of reflection, bringing together dancers, gurus, families, and rasikas in a collective act of remembrance. For a lover of dance, Vishwarupa was a reminder of why classical performances matter. They remind us that tradition is not something distant or fixed, but something that continues to live and grow through people, memory, and collective effort.

Rashmita Adhikari is a freelance writer with a lifelong passion for storytelling. Having completed her Master's in Sociology, she is deeply interested in arts and culture, continuously exploring these subjects to enrich her writing. Rashmita is currently working as content editor at Punarjjani Bharat.