The pandemic has casted a shadow on the entire world, everything was at stagnation during the lockdown however, life never stops and so do art, it continuous to flow like a river until a turn comes in. On the 28th year of Sapphire Sudarshan Chakravorty has taken the digital leap to celebrate dance. Let’s hear it from him:
India’s first digital dance concert presented by Sapphire, what inspired you to take this initiative?
I feel that we as dancers are connected to our art not just for livelihood, it somehow motivates us to move ahead in life and becomes part of our life, The pandemic created a pause and impeded our ownership of the art as we could not practice it all alone as most don’t have that motivation to stir up all alone. So, I thought to open our doors and look at new windows of opportunities through this series which made a strong positive impact on both the physical and mental well-being of our dancers…Circumstances have changed but dance hasn’t. We have danced on stage, danced on the streets, danced in cafes, bookstores, galleries, boardrooms. Now we will dance online. You will view us in a box. But in your mind’s imagination our energy and spirit will create a world of movement, beauty, creativity and meaning for you. We will pervade borders with dance be it physical or digital. We will “DanceVivid”. Vivid is vivacious, alive and pulsating. This is the new now.
Tell us about the experience of performing in front of a web audience, how different is it?
The two mediums can’t be compared, we are stage performers cued to perform in front of live audiences. It’s a direct exchange of energies which never can be the same when we perform for a digital concert with the assumption of some eyes watching us on the other side of the box…
Also performing live art is a 3 D experience which cannot be represented or felt in 2D medium as in a mobile or laptop… I mean screen. We missed the direct communication through applause, clicks of shutterbugs, and cat calls… All these add up to the energy of the performer on stage. But at same time, we love the way audiences kept them engaged through our performances with focus and kept on encouraging us with comments. This is a new learning for both artists and audience!
Dance is a physical form of expression; how did you think of to organize such an event during the norms of social distancing and all that’s around us?
As I said earlier that dance is part of our lives as dancers. I was observing my artists in the online classes and could feel that their muscles were aching to be back on the physical floor of the studio to indulge into the expansion of the space to remain creatively engaged.
It was not an easy decision. Initially I requested dancers to come who have their own mode of transport and stay in close proximity to Sapphire. Dancers started coming in cycles, personal cars. We have kept a person in charge with a new set of sanitation machines who could sanitize floors each time a batch of dancers leave the floor. As I told, we were looking into creating not group works but solos, duets and maximum trios and all were called in different time slots so that space was not overcrowded.
We tried to keep less touch and contact in our pieces but masks could not be worn as dance being such a physical exercise, you have to breathe freely. But as I said, dance enhances your fitness, expands the strength of your lungs as dancers always have more stamina. It was to the contrary that not allowing dancers to come and dance was taking a toll on their mental health which started to improve with this series.
Tell us about the theme on which the troupe is focusing?
All the themes were narratives drawn from personal experience of the dancers in the pandemic. In edition 1, we had theme of Pendulum, where dancers thought they still move but time paused, In Catastrophe, it was about the search of the crisis within and around and question the helplessness of humanity, Deja Vu looked at memories and lost images while Losing Touch Gaining Time focused on the importance of touch in human lives which we lost in pandemic.
Edition 2 had Direction commenting on the speed of life like traffic signals where we were asked to slow down, pause and move on arbitrarily; Hand Stories looked at hand gestures and its importance and at same time giving an insight to the changing context with the emoticons of digital apps when face is covered and there’s an attempt of communication using hands.. Lead Kindly Light tried to look at the positive spirit of light and hope within that leads us despite of all odds!!!
Congrats on 28 years of Sapphire, tell us how much adaptive is Kolkata to the contemporary forms of dance?
We have been running Sapphire over 28 years and in these nearly 3 decades, I saw a great leap in acceptance and practice of Contemporary dance. Actually, Bengal being the pioneer of modern dance and art with icons like Uday Shankar and Rabindranath Tagore, it was harder for people both audience and practitioners to create anything new out of the shackles of ‘Rabindra Nritya’ or ‘Creative Dance’ of Shankar STyle. So, when we started, it was an aberration and we attracted a lot of flak for both context, content and narratives as were dancing ‘outside the socio-cultural norming’ but gradually Contemporary dance assumed its expansion and popularity with changing generation who started to have more exposure through internet, television and other mediums. So, the fraternity and changing context of Contemporary dance started to grow here too. Other cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi although had their personal independent stories of the journey of Contemporary dance which is characteristic of that city, we in Kolkata took some more time to come out of that nostalgia and ‘ownership/belongingness of Bengaliness’ in accepting and supporting a multi-dimensional, freeform of physical vocabulary used in Contemporary dance which also reoriented and re-educated the audience and the dancers.
Even now it’s changing every moment where other international forms are being practiced and today’s generation unapologetically accepts and imbibes things what they love and passionate about without carrying any baggage of ‘ownership/ghetto/gharana’ which is good as we find Kolkata becoming more flexible and adaptive to accept changes!!!
(As told to Triparno Ghosal, IBTN9)
