The task she took on was indeed on a giant scale. It’s marvellous how she has choreographed pieces for abstract Western opera music,” says Bhansali. “I’m proud to be able to showcase Tanusree’s modern choreography with ancient roots to audiences abroad. In fact, Bhansali flew down to Calcutta several times to discuss the choreography of a project that was conceived on a scale grander than anything that he had done before. Tanusree says that it all began with an unexpected phone call from the Bollywood director known for his flamboyant movies like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas and Saawariya. I would rather have a prop missing than a cast member.”įilmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Tanusree at the Theatre du Chatelet where Padmavati was staged Says Tanusree: “I requested the director to let it go.
But during the dress rehearsal it suddenly decided that it didn’t care for the boy’s elaborate headgear and costume and decided to give him a tight squeeze. The creature had been unusually well-behaved all through. One of the male dancers playing the role of Lord Shiva had neatly wrapped a python around his throat during rehearsals to give the opera a degree of authenticity. But everything was finally synchronised without members of the cast being scared off the stage by the other creatures present there,” she recounts.īut there were minor hiccups along the way - with the exotic cast going for each other’s throats, quite literally. “The whole thing was an ordeal, to put it mildly.
To earn the adulation, Tanusree had to work her fingers to the bone, putting together an exotic cast that included a real trumpeting elephant, a stamping horse, a gambolling tiger cub and a coiled python along with dancers from her troupe. The opera by French composer Albert Roussel, mounted by filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, opened to packed houses in places like the prestigious Theatre du Chatelet in Paris and the Italian Festival at Spoletto last month and received a 15-minute standing ovation and seven curtain calls at the end of its first show. There’s also the annual soiree of her dance school - Ananda Shankar Centre for Performing Arts - that’ll be held at the Science City auditorium in August.īut her most avant-garde project, the extravagantly choreographed Padmavati, was a lavish spectacle on a monumental scale. Also, she’s matching her dainty steps to the words of the famous Sufi poet Mowlana Jalal-ad-din Rumi - choreographing a dance composition tentatively titled We are the living, set to the words of Rumi’s poem, Human being. She is shooting for the television reality show, Naach Dhoom Machale on ETV Bangla. After choreographing the opera Padmavati and winning over critics and audiences alike, she is already snowed under with work in her hometown. Tanusree Shankar has just touched down in her favourite city - Calcutta, of course - after a whirlwind tour of Paris and Spoletto, in the Umbrian Hills near Rome. TANUSREE SHANKAR IS STEPPING OUT IN NEW DIRECTIONS, SAYS SUSMITA SAHAĪ still from Padmavati, which wowed audiences in Paris and Italy