“One of the most luminous dance events of the year!”
The New York Times June 1996

“This was dance that never seemed to stop, even in those curvilinear poses. Should we dare compare it to George Balanchine's work with the New York City Ballet, where ballerinas seemed to float while seemingly encased in a simple fifth position? Like NYCB, Sen's dancers would erupt into movement that surged across the stage with remarkable speed and agility!”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2002

“The dancers from Nrityagram stormed the bastion of dance in Chennai, wowing the knowledgeable audience into a standing ovation!”
The Hindu January 2005

“Excellence doesn’t sneak up on you; it walks right up and shakes your hand!
... Watching Sen’s choreography is like encountering a chef with a perfect palate or a singer with perfect pitch. The sense of proportion and balance is immaculate. A line of dancers will shift, stamp and swirl in unison and imperceptibly one of them will glide back from the group to pose and watch. Sen has an unerring sense of when to keep dancers in formation and when to vary the picture as if she could anticipate the audience’s desires. Her use of space is similar. The patterns aren’t complex; they’re simply right.”
DanceviewTimes April 2005

“Nrityagram is the best Indian classical dance company to come to this area in a long time. It's confident. It's cutting-edge. It's a winner.”
The Washington Post May 2006

“Surupa Sen performed a magical mime solo in which she acted out a jealous scene between Krishna and Radha, followed by Krishna’s guilty plea for forgiveness, all based on a twelfth century poem. As she mimed the words “you are the universe…the limpid crescent moon resting in your hair,” her eyes softened, her fingers traced the delicate line of the moon, and then shimmered around her body. She seemed to emanate light. Time stopped. Not many dancers, in any style, can manage this.”
DanceTabs February 2008

“Ever since Nrityagram’s first New York season in 1996 at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, no Indian dancers have been better known in America.”
The New York Times March 2012

“In the evening’s pièce de résistance, artistic director and choreographer Surupa Sen brilliantly met the challenge of classical dance: how it might speak in the language of now without being wrenched from its foundation.
In her meditation on Shiva, which she performed with stunning long-time troupe member Bijayini Satpathy, Sen did not forgo the iconic gestures: the flaming claw of a hand for Shiva rattling his drum or the palm waving beside the head for the Ganges flowing from his locks. But she scaled the steps to intensify the poetry and multiply the meanings. Sometimes you zoomed in – on a heel slowly touching the ground or on eyes crossing in mad zeal – and sometimes you zoomed out to take in the dancers’ fiery gallop or the weave of steps between them.
The effect was like having a third eye and seeing everything all at once. Of the Indian dance I have encountered, I have never been so dazzled or so moved!”
Financial Times March 2012

“The women of the Nrityagram Ensemble are rock stars in the dance world!”
New York Post March 2012

“Nrityagram, on the far outskirts of Bangalore, has clearly been extremely conducive to the creativity of these superb dancers, giving them time and space to reflect on their dance form in order to determine which boundaries they may cross and which they must honour. Their performance bore witness to the fine judgement with which they have done so, introducing new movements, interpretations and energy into their dance without betraying the grace and sculptural features that form the backbone of Odissi.”
Mumbai Mirror September 2012

“You could write an essay just about the different effects of Ms. Sen’s shaking hands: musical like vibrato or trills, expressive of emotional agitation, giving a shimmer to images like flames or the love marks left on Krishna’s body by scratching nails.”
The New York Times April 2013

“Nrityagram is probably the Indian dance company most beloved by American audiences right now (maybe ever)!”
The New Yorker January 2015

“The only proper response to dancers this amazing is worship!”
The New York Times January 2015

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble are both extraordinary and remarkable, by themselves on any ordinary day.”
ExploreDance.com January 2015

“In fact for a moment, nothing else mattered at all!”
DanceTabs January 2015

“... New York City dance history was made!”
Ballet Review Spring 2016

“According to tradition, largely a solo form, Indian classical dance has succumbed to the ensemble but rarely justified it. Nrityagram’s artistic director, however, transforms islands of activity into an archipelago that stretches across the stage. She zooms in on a dancer by having the others freeze in distinct poses like adjacent pages in a flipbook. She scatters our attention with troupers flitting in and out from the wings, and gathers it up again when they form a circle centre-stage ... Sen has writ large the romance between line and curve that distinguishes Odissi!”
Financial Times November 2016

“These are among the world’s greatest dancers!”
The New York Times November 2016

“Samhāra is truly dancing at its very best!”
Ballet Review Spring 2019

“It takes an artist of her (Surupa) stature to really understand that music is hidden in its silences.”
The Hindu December 2019