BENGALURU: Art and culture have a way of bringing people together and making it a smaller place. Bringing two cultures together, Nrityagram Dance Ensemble in collaboration with Chitrasena Dance Company is coming up with a choreography, Ahuti, which is happening on Sept. 25 at Chowdiah Memorial Hall. The collaboration will feature Odissi and Sri Lanka’s Kandyan dance styles. The entire performance is set to rhythms from both countries. The music is composed by Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi.
While Odissi danseuse Surupa Sen is the artistic director, choreographer, and sound designer of the piece, Heshma Wignaraj from Chitrasena Dance Company is the associate choreographer, who has created the Kandyan dance part. Sen also leads the manjira for the show. Wignaraja, who serves as the current artistic director of the company, says, “Ahuti has four different sections and is not one big story. It starts with Sankirtanam which is a full Odissi piece, next one is Aarti where there are four Odissi dancers and four Kandyan dancers; then there is Shiva Tandava and the alap.
All these pieces make the production,” explains Wignaraja. Chitrasena Dance Company is among Sri Lanka’s oldest and most distinguished dance companies. Founded in 1943 by Guru Chitrasena, the company has been crucial in finding a modern, international stage for Sri Lanka’s traditional dance forms. Wignaraja has known Sen for 20 years. “From 2011, we have been invited to work with Nrityagram and that was the first time we collaborated.
There was a time when Surupa di and her dancer had come to Sri Lanka for some research. Our relationship was very different and we had no intention of collaborating,” she explains. Ahuti premiered in 2019 which not only got rave reviews from the audience but also from the fraternity. The piece was then performed to full houses across several countries. It will now be performed in the city again after three years, before it heads to the international festival circuit. The piece is the second collaboration between the two companies after the highlyacclaimed ‘Samhara’ (2012).