Of the many things that one needs to be thankful and protective of, seasons is one of the pivotal ones. Paying an ode to the changing seasons and their relation with mankind and emotion is Sapphire Creations Dance Company through their performance Rituranga held as part of the second edition of Victoria Memorial Hall Cultural Fest 2025 – Sanskriti Para.
The performance made its debut almost two decades ago and choreographer and conceptualiser, Sudarshan Chakravorty mentions, “Traditional stylistic devices to celebrate the onset of seasons in nature have been part of both Western and Indian literary traditions. Poets of England have reacted to this tradition in a variety of expressions notably in the Renaissance, the Romantic and later in the Modern age. Indian literature reached its most worthy stage of bloom and fruition in the lifetime and works of poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore and the best of nature poetry like the best of many other literary expressions, are part of his rich legacy to us.”
He continues, “In Tagore’s works every element of nature is infused with life, longing, movement and an almost human sensitivity. Every puff of the blowing breeze, the scent of flowers in half-bloom; the roar of the billows becomes real in his lyrical and musical finesse. But this ecstatic outpouring of the soul is often not accessible to those not versed in Bengali.”
Turning lyrics from the Gitanjali into the rhythms of expression is the collaboration between the dance troupe and Dr Partha Ghose’s compilation of Tagore’s works which give birth to the performance Rituranga. Here, the seasons, grishma(summer), varsha(monsoon), sharat(post monsoon), hemanta(autumn), sheeta(winter) and vasanta(spring) are explored through an idiom which is radical, experimental, and a colourful geometry of designs against space and time.
Over the years, the performance travelled to various prestigious occasions like Uday Shankar Dance Festival in New Delhi in 2005 , Nisagandhi Festival in Thiruvananthapuram in 2005, National Festival Nritya Sanchetna at Agartala organized by Central Sangeet Natak Akademi 2015, North America Bengali Conference 2017, San Francisco (USA) to name a few. We delved further to know how the choreography evolve in the past two decades. Chakravorty mentions, “The sacramental iconography of 'Rabindra Nritya' was itself challenged through the production. Although there was no major change in choreography but as a choreographer, I feel the teaching /transfer of movement to new bodies became easier as I was more cued technically with terminologies to help dancers decipher the complexities of the form. But no two shows remain the same and so when we went on rediscovering the production in new bodies year after year, it was a revelation of the newness each dancer brought with their sensibility of training in Contemporary and other dances like kalaripayattu and hasta mudras of Indian traditional dance.”
The 45 minute presentation is helmed by Promita Karfa, Manju Ray Dutta, Nitai Panrui, Rima Halder, Abrar Saqeeb, Arpita Dutta, Bhaskar Routh, Raju Sarkar and Sudarshan Chakravorty; with elocution by Barun Das; recorded songs by Aditi Mohsin, Srikanta Acharya and Samarjit Guha; costumes by Snehasish Bhattacharya; and lights by Dipankar Dhar .
What: Rituranga
Where: Victoria Memorial Hall
When: December 20, 2025
Time: 4 pm onwards
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