Establishing Nrityangan

After returning from the USA in 1968, there was a sense of emptiness. Sunanda and I therefore decided to open a center for dance. We were yet to get married, but had already decided to share our life’s journey together, and received blessings from our families. Sutapa Sengupta, Sunanda’s elder sister, named the institution Nrityangan. Rather than a school for teaching dance it was a center which was created for professional dance performances. Sunanda and I established Nrityangan in 1969 with Dada’s blessings.

Bikash Babu of Baitanik, was approached to help us with the registration formalities for the institute. Anubhati, Sunanda’s friend, helped us a lot in this endeavour. Bikashda stepped in to help us without any hesitation. Once the registration was complete, rehearsals and training sessions were conducted in South Point Junior school in Hindustan Road. This was arranged by Swarup Dutta who helped us connect with Satikanta Guha. Sessions used to be conducted twice a week. The logo of Nrityangan was designed by Arup Guhathakurta, an artist and husband of Ruma Guhathakurta. We had already been well acquainted with them as we had already performed with Rumadi’s Calcutta Youth Choir. Sunanda also knew them by virtue of being neighbours in Ballygunge Place, Kolkata.

Image 7.1a: The logo of Nrityangan, created by Arup Guhathakurta

Image 7.1b: Debabrata Biswas (Georgeda) performing in Nrityangan’s first production in 1969, before the dance drama Chitrangada was staged. He is being accompanied on the tabla by Biplab and Dinuda (Dinesh Chandra) on the sitar.

The President of Nrityangan was literateur, Narendra Nath Mitra. The other committee members comprised Rabindra Sangeet stalwarts like Suchitra Mitra, and Santosh Sengupta. Sunanda’s younger sister, Sudipta Sengupta, and her mother, Puspa Sengupta, were also members of the committee. Sunanda was the treasurer, while I became the Secretary of Nrityangan.

We decided to start with the production of Tagore’s Chitrangada. For this, I reached out to Suchitra Mitra and Debobrata Biswas. Both of them were at the peak of their fame. I had already performed with them earlier. With Georgeda I had been a part of Barsha-Basanto, and as bajrosen in Suchitradi’s production of Shyama. After discussions it was decided that Georgeda would perform solo at the beginning of the programme. Suchitradi decided to take charge of the music direction apart from her rendition of Bir Chitrangada.

Images: Private collection of Shanti Bose

Image 7.2: Suchitradi took charge of the entire music for Chitrangada. Seen in the image in the first row from left to right are Suchitradi, Sumitra, Biplab. Seated between Biplab and Sumitra, is Arghyada. Also seen in the image seated behind Biplab is Dinuda. Beside Dinuda on the esraj is his brother, Romuda (Ramesh Chandra). Seated behind Suchitradi is Susmita Roychowdhury, and seated to her left is Dhiren Bose.

Image 7.3 and 7.4: Sunanda in the role of Bir Chitranga. Once I gave Sunanda a visualization, she designed and stitched the rexin sheet for use as armour, while her younger sister, Sudipta Sengupta, painted it.

Image 7.3: Sunanda in the role of Bir Chitranga. We created this costume. Once I gave Sunanda a visualization, she designed and stitched the rexin sheet for use as armour that Sunanda, while her younger sister, Sudipta Sengupta, painted it.

Image 7.4: Sunanda in the role of Bir Chitranga. We created this costume. Once I gave Sunanda a visualization, she designed and stitched the rexin sheet for use as armour that Sunanda, while her younger sister, Sudipta Sengupta, painted it.

What is noteworthy and especially mentionable in today’s context, is that none of these stellar artistes took any remuneration for any of their contributions. Their support and enthusiasm for a new cultural initiative were incomparable and for it, both Sunanda and I remain eternally grateful.

As far as the other singers were concerned Dhiren Bose sang in the role of Arjun, Arghya Sen in the role of Madan, Suchitradi in the role of Bir Chitrangada, Sumitra Bose, Suchitradi’s student sang in the role of Surupa Chitrangada. Suchitradi conducted the rehearsals every day together with the dance rehearsals so that the synchronization could be flawless. Pradeep Ghosh and Shantana Chowdhury recited the narrative segments of the dance drama. With names like Suchitra Mitra and Debabrata Biswas, we had a huge gate sell! Dada had also come to watch the performance and wished us well.

Image 7.5: Sunanda enacting one of Tagore’s most evocative songs - Ami Chintrangada, Rajendranandini.

Image 7.6 and 7.7: Sunanda and I performing as Bir Chitrangada and Arjun in the last song of the dance drama, Trishnar shanti, shundaro kanti in Nrityangan’s first staged performance of 1969.

Image 7.5: Sunanda enacting one of Tagore’s most evocative songs - Ami Chintrangada, Rajendranandini.

Image 7.6: Sunanda and I performing as Bir Chitrangada and Arjun in the last song of the dance drama, Trishnar shanti, shundaro kanti in Nrityangan’s first staged performance of 1969.

Image 7.7: Sunanda and I performing as Bir Chitrangada and Arjun in the last song of the dance drama, Trishnar shanti, shundaro kanti in Nrityangan’s first staged performance of 1969.

While Nrityangan was primarily involved in teaching and continuing the tradition of Dada’s style, with time, our uniqueness and forte became performing Tagore’s dance dramas in Dada’s style. Looking back, I realise how natural this was, for when I joined Dada, he was preparing his production of Rabindranath’s Samanya Kshati and Udara Charitanam. The next major production for Dada was Prakriti Ananda, for which I was appointed his Ballet Master. During the staging of Shankarscope in 1972, when Samanya Kshati was recreated, I was not only the Ballet Master, but was also appointed as Dada’s Assistant Director for Samanya Kshati, and enacted the role of the King as well - a role which Dada used to previously enact himself. So, I guess, that we would progress with Tagore’s other dance dramas such as Chitrangada, Shyama, Shapmochan, as well as his works on Tasher Desh, Barsha Basanta, was only natural.

Image 7.8: Dada in the audience of Nrityangan’s first performance in 1969. Next to Dada are renowned Rabindrasangeet singers, Chinmoy Chatterjee and Santosh Sengupta. Next to Santoshda is Sandhya Sen, a reporter, and then Meera Mazumdar. Seated in the second row in the center is Sunanda’s father, Jyoti Ranjan Sengupta, next to him is Bengali film actor Swarup Dutta (Debu) and his wife, Sucheta Dutta (Mumu).

Image 7.9: Dada with the team of Nrityangan after the performance. Second from the left in the front row is Narendra Nath Mitra, then Sunanda, Dada, Jayashree Lahiri and other team members. I am standing in the second row with Barda (Dhurjati Sen), who had performed in the role of Madan.

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Our first production of Chitrangada in 1969 was a huge success and from then on, there was no looking back! Nrityangan staged performances in Kolkata and all-around India. In 1987 we visited Singapore to perform Chitrangada and Mahajiban (based on the life of Lord Buddha). After we lost Dada, we began conducting an annual programme in December titled ‘Guru Pranam’, to commemorate Dada’s birth anniversaries. We were invited regularly to perform at Rabindra Jayanti organized by Rabindra Sadan, and in various other programmes and festivals including Banga Sanskriti Sammelan, Uday Shankar Satabdi Samaroh, several festivals organized by the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, and innumerable performances for private organizations.
Nrityangan also performed a number of Tagore's dance dramas for the Indian television network - Doordarshan. Prominent among them were, Chandalika, Tasher Desh, Samanya Kshati, Mahajiban, a special performance celebrating 50 years of independence, and another special performance celebrating 50 years of Kolkata Doordarshan.
HMV SaReGaMa released video compact discs (VCDs) of Chandalika and Shyama, set to the original recordings directed by Santosh Sengupta with voice recordings of Suchitra Mitra, Kanika Bandyopadhyay and Hemanta Mukherjee, where the dance performances have been put up by Nrityangan. Bhavna Records also released Tagore's VCDs of Tasher Desh and Chandalika in May 2006, but these were based on music recordings made by Nrityangan in the 1990s, with prominent Rabindrasangeet artists of the time.
Throughout our performances, we have been blessed to have the support of renowned Rabindrasangeet artistes like Suchitra Mitra, Dwijen Mukherjee, Arghya Sen, Ritu Guha, Purba Dam, Abhirup Guhathakurta, Indira Bandopadhya, Pramita Mallik, Debarati Shome, Alok Roychowdhury, among others.
The music director for the majority of Nrityangan’s productions was Bishnudas Sadhukhan, who used to also play the flute with Dada. Ranjan Majumder, Dada’s sitarist was also a part of all our productions for the longest time. Artists like Biplab Mondal (tabla), Pallab De (tabla), Shankar Mukherjee (tabla) and Abhijit Banerjee (percussion) were also associated with many of Nrityangan’s productions.
The costumes were always designed by Sunanda, who went to unimaginable extents to ensure that they were always crisp, ironed, stitched, and coordinated. Sunanda’s younger sister Sudipta Sengupta, a geologist by profession, the only surviving summiteer of Mt. Lalana, and one of the first Indian women scientists to go to Antarctica, later became Nrityangan’s President. The artist in her also pitched in to help, be it to design and paint the sarees, or stage designing and decoration. The costumes for the performances were handled by Deepak Das.

Image 7.10: Sunanda and I got married on May 17, 1970.

Image 8.10: Sunanda and I got married on May 17, 1970.

Sunanda and I tied the knot in May 1970. She took a break from dancing during late 1970 and 1971 as we were blessed with our first born, our daughter, Sulakshana. Our second born was our son, Shamik, who arrived in 1978. Both would grow up to become an integral part of Nrityangan. So Nrityangan slowly became an inherent part of our lives.