Sapphire Creations Dance Company celebrated the hard work of all its dancers in the last one year with Sapphire Annual Gala 2023 at Gyan Manch on March 29. The highlight of the evening was three new productions that left the Calcutta audience awestruck with their choreography and themes.More than 40 dancers with students of the academy presented Aanki Buki or The Ingenious Madness, which got the Jury Award, PECDA 2022, India’s first national award for contemporary dance. It underscored the idea of breaking off from the confines of normality and embracing the eccentric or abnormal in you and bringing about a change. The evening also saw Sense & Senses, which was performed in Poland in 2022 as an inter-cultural presentation at the Roots of Dance Festival organised by Zaklad Tance, the dance division at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, Poland. It intended to explore the way back to the roots, connecting to nature through the senses using breathing as an integral part. Workshops on Polish folklore by teachers from Poland aided in the making of the production.The last performance of the evening was Driodsphere — AI vs I, presented by the students of the academy that takes one on a disquiet journey of evolution with technology. It explored a sphere where humans and AI are rapidly functioning hand in hand, bringing us to the question of vulnerability in the framework.
“Premiering three new works for Calcutta with different themes contextually makes Sapphire and our form of contemporary dance relevant to both dancers and the audience. It established the power of dance as a tool of empowerment and the annual gala was able to prove again that it is indeed a forum in Calcutta where we transform dance practitioners and learners into professional dancers, teachers and choreographers by giving them the opportunity to implement their knowledge into actual practice and presentation,” said Sudarshan Chakravorty, director, Sapphire Creations Dance Company.