Sohini Roychowdhury wraps up European Summer tour

Multi-award winning Indian dancer, choreographer, producer, professor of Natyashastra and Indian dance, and founder of Sohinimoksha World Dance and Communications, Sohini Roychowdhury is now in Kolkata, after concluding her extensive 2-month long Summer Tour of Europe, performing, lecture-demonstrating and conducting Bharatanatyam Master Classes across five countries.

Sohini's European dance-travaganza started swirling with her annual week long solo Bharatanatyam performances and lecture demonstrations at various UNESCO schools in Austria and Italy – Sohini has been artistically engaged with this part of the world for the last several years, and this year too was akin to a homecoming. In a significant moment, on Rabindranath Tagore's birthday, alpine school-children recited 'Where the Mind is Without Fear' and swayed to a specially choreographed dance with Sohini.

Moving onto to Germany, Sohini's ghungroos literally kicked off the annual Asia Pacific Week in Berlin, where her solo Bharatanatyam performance enthralled a packed house at the Tagore Centre Auditorium of the Indian Embassy.

Embodying Goddess Durga in specially choreographed vignettes, along with traditional Tanjore-style pieces, Sohini's performance was much appreciated by the discerning audience.

Sohini's Germany tour continued with performances in Central and Northern German Universities – solos, workshops and storytelling from the Puranas and Vedas in multiple cities of Germany – The Sanskrit Trail – connecting Kalidasa and Goethe.

Sohini's next stop was Belgium, as a special invitee of the Academei Royale des Beaux-Arts Belgique (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Belgium), to conduct a series of lecture-demonstrations and Bharatanatyam Master Classes at the academy's dance centers in Brussels and Namur. These sessions were attended by more than 50 semi-professional ballet exponents and their teachers. The vibe and excitement generated by these sessions led to a special public commemoration of Sohini by the Governor of Namur (a direct representative of the King of Belgium) at Namur Town Hall – a rare and distinctive honour for an artiste from any part of the world, and a proud moment for India.

From Belgium, Sohini's ghungroos danced their way into Nantes, France, and onwards to Madrid, Spain, her "home-base". In Spain, her continuing engagements with Casa Asia, Barcelona Music Museum and Instituto de Cervantes, will soon lead to a series of pathbreaking collaborations, the seeds of which were sown on this trip.