Rangeela 2025: Colour, Celebration, Community

Five dancers facing right with one arm raised

Rangeela 2025: Colour, Celebration, Community

News and Press
Rangeela 2025 was a wonderful day of joyful celebration and wonder!
 
Thank you so much to the families and individuals that joined us, helping to make this a vibrant and memorable occasion.
 
Special thanks should go to:
  • the Mayor of Cambridge Councillor Baiju Thittala who joined us for our dance showcase – it was an honour to have you there.
  • Hilary Cox Condron for kindly judging our young artists competition – not an easy job!
  • Gather and Go, for their gorgeous stage set up
  • Namaste Cambridge for providing delicious food, and DanceMasti for their music.
  • Anoohya for so ably MCing our show!
  • And to Cambridge City Council for supporting the event and making it possible.

Finally, a big thank you must go to our dancers and their family and friends who supported the event, both in the run up and on the day.

New Arts Council England Funding for Tree of Life

Three dancers with arms raised like trees

New Arts Council England Funding for Tree of Life

News and Press

We are delighted to announce that Arts Council England have awarded us funding for our new work, Tree of Life.

This work, aimed at children aged 7+, explores the cultural significance of trees in the East and the West. Drawing inspiration from Buddha attaining enlightenment under a Bodhi (fig) tree in India and Newton discovering gravity from an apple tree in the UK, Tree of Life weaves a tale of how these two events lead to a deepening of human understanding, spiritually and scientifically.

Our thanks go to Arts Council England and to our partners Akademi, Cambridge Junction, Cambridge University Hospitals-Arts, Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, DanceEast, Hertfordshire Libraries, Mercury Theatre.

We will be recording how this work develops through a series of films on our YouTube channel – just follow our Tree of Life playlist.

Enjoy South Asian dance and culture at Cambridge Dance Festival this July

Enjoy South Asian dance and culture at Cambridge Dance Festival this July

News and Press

Award-winning Sanskruti Dance brings a dance festival for everyone to Cambridge this July, with dance workshops and performances drawing from a wide range of South Asian dance traditions. The festival will be held on Sunday 7th July at Cambridge Junction, with dance workshops at 10am, 11.30am and 12.30pm, followed by an evening performance starting at 6pm.

The morning dance workshops are a great opportunity for people to unleash their creativity through rhythm and movement, exploring Bollywood and Manipuri dance styles. Run by the UK’s leading South Asian dance artists, these sessions are suitable for different ages and abilities, so the whole family can take part.

In the evening, the whole family can enjoy stunning performances from some of the best South Asian dancers, as well as local performers from Sanskruti Cambridge dance school. The showcase will include:

  • Suhani Dhanki Mody, a performer, teacher and choreographer and Indian TV and film actress, who will perform Bharatanatyam dance, the oldest classical dance tradition in India
  • Noel Datta, a dance movement psychotherapist and performer who will perform Manipuri, one of the major Indian classical dance forms from Manipur
  • the ever-popular and increasingly familiar dance style from Bollywood, courtesy of London-based dance company Aparajita Burjwal Dance.

Krishna Zivraj-Nail, Sanskruti Dance’s Artistic Director, said, “Cambridge does not have a festival focussed on dance that brings families together allowing them to explore their own creativity with rhythms and movement. At Sanskruti, we believe that dance is for everyone, and can be made accessible, and are always looking for ways to reach out to new people,

including the elderly along with children and their families. We hope this one-day dance festival will be an opportunity for everyone to experience the benefits of dance and introduce more people to Indian dance and culture.”

To book your tickets, visit: www.junction.co.uk/events/cambridge-dance-festival/

Magical Honey marks 20th show at Corn Exchange Newbury

Dancers from Magical Honey on stage

Magical Honey marks 20th show at Corn Exchange Newbury

News and Press
Sunday 5th May marked our 20th show of Magical Honey as we performed at Corn Exchange Newbury.
 
Inspired by Roald Dahl’s Matilda and Saraswati, the Indian Goddess of Knowledge, the show merges stories from the East and West. Magical Honey’s story started in 2020 thanks to seed commission from Akademi. We were then co-commissioned by Cambridge Junction, DanceEast and also Mercury Theatre Colchester.
 
Magical Honey is the combined efforts of 20 creatives and went on to win the Stobb’s New Ideas Award. Since our premiere at Cambridge Junction in May 2023 we have toured across the UK in locations ranging from Glasgow to Kent. Since then, over 800 people have seen the show!
 
One of the many ways in which Magical Honey is special is that we showcase the talents of young performers. We are one of the first South Asian dance companies to include performers as young as 8 years old in developing Magical Honey. Our show includes live violin playing, storytelling and magic.
 
Thank you to everyone who helped to get us here.

Sanskruti Dance to be supported by 2024’s Sawston Fun Run

Children performing at Rangeela in blue and gold costumes

Sanskruti Dance to be supported by 2024’s Sawston Fun Run

News and Press

We are so pleased to have been chosen as one the organisations supported by Sawston Fun Run this year. Sawston Fun Run is an annual family event which this year is being held on 12th May. The day is fun for all ages and is a great way to support the local Sawston community.

Organisers of the run said, “This year’s response from charities and good causes for funding at the 2024 Sawston Fun Run & Walk was nothing short of astounding. The passion and dedication exhibited by these organisations left us inspired and motivated. We decided to champion the efforts of 24 smaller, local charities and organisations. These are the unsung heroes making a significant impact on our community.”

Contributions from the fun run will go towards community Bollywood dance workshops, studio space and children’s dance costumes, which will save families an additional expense.

If you’re near to Sawston – or if you’re just looking for a fun-filled family day out – then find more details and sign up on the Sawston Fun Run website.

Rangeela 2024: Celebration of south Asian art, music, dance and food

Rangeela 2024: Celebration of south Asian art, music, dance and food

News and Press

Supported by Cambridge City Council, Rangeela 2024 was held at Clay Farm Centre, Trumpington on Saturday 20th January. Rangeela, which means colourful, brought people together through south Asian art, music, dance and food!

The event started with a drawing and painting competition followed by a dance showcase by Sanskruti students, and finished with a Bollywood dancefloor by the Cambridge DanceMasti. Along with our?!

Thanks go to Cambridge-based artist Diyali Majumder who judged the art competition, to the Mayor of Cambridge who joined us for the evening, and to our wonderful volunteers who supported the event.

We need to say thank you to the parent volunteers for cooking and bringing food (tuck shop) and to Namaste Cambridge (a local Indian takeaway for bringing food).

If you missed the fun, here’s a flavour of the day, thanks to ITV Anglia: 

Work begins on new R&D ‘Tree of Life’

Work begins on new R&D ‘Tree of Life’

News and Press

In January, we had a wonderful week in the studio at Cambridge Junction working on our new R&D, tentatively titled ‘Tree of Life’. The new production once again blends Indian and western cultures, exploring science and spirituality through the medium of trees.

Sanskruti’s Artistic Director worked with a new creative team, dancers Neethu and Srusti, bringing in fresh ideas and energy into the work. We are looking forward to bringing you the next phase of development. In the meantime, have a taste of how our first week of work developed:

Supported by Cambridge Junction and Arts Council England.