The International Choreographers’ Residency in Sapphire is back!
International Choreographers’ Residency in Sapphire (INCRES) is back, with ‘Session XVII’ set to be presented by French choreographer Michel Casanovas and Swiss musician Eveline Noth for a 15-day residency event in Burdwan, Birbhum & Kolkata.
This time, ‘Sapphire’ intends to give access to this learning to many upcoming young movement art practitioners from dance and theatre to have a holistic view of ‘Movement’ and ‘Stillness’ to engage themselves and the spectators as well.
Michel and Eveline are both Feldenkrais practitioners and use this knowledge as a fulcrum to initiate sensation, becoming a realisation to redefine the purpose of ‘moving’. This also, in some way, helps to explore the idea of ‘making a dance/performance’ even from mundane daily gestures stripped from outer or deliberate ornamentation of technique, form, style or narrative, making it a ‘personal’ journey.
The project of ‘Dream of an Elsewhere’ was born in the intimacy of a creative dialogue between Biel and Bern, through the valleys of the Jura, the alleys of Basel, the shores of the Mediterranean and all the way to the vibrant streets of Calcutta.
This project is like a dream of travel, unfolding and revealing itself through the resonance of sounds, rhythms and bodies. It’s a dream of crossing, of sensory awakening and of inhabited slowness.
Crossings through the different phases of evolution: from the cellular to the mineral, to the animal, to the human, all the way to the heart… It’s a living score, composed and transformed through improvisations, through the resonances of the body, of breath, of voices and of silences. It’s a choreographic and musical journey, both raw and refined, composed and improvised as it travels through different emotional frequencies, inhabited by the imprints of the world - faces, landscapes, sorrows and wonders. Ankita Duttagupta, Promita Karfa, Avirupa Das, Soma Chattapdhyay, Abrar Saqib, Bijoy Sharma, Raju Sarkar, Bhaskar Routh and Oushnik Halder with Michel Casanovas & Eveline Noth will perform.
This performance will take place on February 17 at Artshila in Santiniketan and on February 21 at Anuchintan Art Centre, which is part of ‘Sapptop Series’, Session VI.
Schedule for February 2026
9th: SappTop, Sapphire premises, Kolkata, 4 pm (Residency)
13th-15th: Tepantar Theatre Village, Satkahania, West Burdwan, 3 pm
16th: Viswap Bharati, Shantiniketan, Inaugural Session, as part of International IKS Movement workshop, org by Centre for Literature Bhasha Bhavan and Yogic Arts & Science, Vinaya Bhavana, 9:30 am
17th: Artshila, Shantiniketan, Birbhum (as part of ‘SappTop Series’, Session VI), 7 pm
18-20th: Anuchintan Arts Centre, Kolkata, 4 pm (Residency)
21st: Anuchintan Arts Centre, Kolkata (as part of ‘SappTop Series’, Session VI), 5 pm & 7 pm
