For Rabindranath Tagore, dance and music was an integral part of school curriculum. To him dance was not a form meant only for the proscenium stage or a way of worship. The poet had an intuitive understanding of the place of dance and music in the lives of people. So he introduced dance in Visva Bharati to celebrate seasons, worship nature and every other occasion.
Tagore’s celebrations of the seasons in general and Basanta Utsav in particular were designed to meet high standards of aesthetic enjoyment for which he composed many lyrics. His first exposure to classical dance was at Tripura, where he saw for the first time Rasleela. Seeing its great beauty, he immediately urged the king to send him a Manipuri dance teacher for his students in Santiniketan. He did not stop after including dance in the school curriculum. Spring songs were penned for which dance had to be composed and taught. It is indeed amazing to note that Basanta Utsav has become the most important festival of Bengal.
Aesthetic element
The aesthetic element of Basanta Utsav has in fact tempered the madness of Holi with artistic sensibilities. The town of Bolpur becomes the pilgrim spot of people from all over the world. This year too, it was the same when Visva Bharati presented the Basanta Utsav. The dance teachers of Sangeet Bhavana presented their students in dance performances accompanied by the inimitable lyrics of Tagore. The songs were sung by the teachers and the students as were the dances.
With the palash flower, an indigenous red coloured flower, blossoming to welcome spring, the residents of the ashram costumed in the colours of spring danced their way to the venue, beckoning householders to open their doors and welcome beautiful spring with the song, “Ore grihabasi khol dwar khol laglo je dol”. It was a beautiful sight to see rows and rows of girls and boys dancing through the lanes of the ashram to reach the festival place, to enjoy the dances to be presented on stage.
After which they would smear gulal and abir on each other. Emphasis of the dances were in portraying the mood and spirit rather than giving importance of the grammar of the movements of the classical dance forms. Playing of colours formally started after the dance “Rangiye diye jao, jao ke ebar jabar belay”.
Happy young girls kept the rhythm of the lyrics sometimes with coloured short wooden sticks and sometimes on cymbals or sometimes only through soft touches on each other’s hands. Some of the lyrics on which dances were composed were “Aaji dokhino duaro khola”, “Aamar bone bone futlo mukul”, “Neel digonte oi phuler agun laglo” and “Bosonte phul ganthlo” . Needless to say, all the songs were from “Songs of spring season”
