With a tale that traverses the ages, Mallika Sarabhai transforms Bharatanatyam into an exploration of female agency through the centuries
Mallika Sarabhai and Aditi Ramesh in a collaboration titled Yes and No, part of Past Forward
Dance is more than just a performing art for Mallika Sarabhai. The director of Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad tells this writer, “It is, to me, one powerful language, and I speak many.” The theatre maker and danseuse will be taking the stage tonight at G5A to showcase her latest creation, Past Forward.
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A nayika transformed
“The show traces the evolution of the agency of the nayika, or those of us who perform the nayika today. It is also an example of what I use Bharatanatyam to speak about. This is traditional Pandanallur Bharatanatyam, but its expression is completely different,” she remarks. The performance, conceptualised in 2023 as part of the Kolkata Literary Festival, is almost a mixed-media performance with Carnatic music and jazz accompanying the poetic verses dating from the 13th century to modern times. It is also the first time she is bringing it to a Mumbai stage.
The verses, Sarabhai reveals, follow the journey of the ‘nayika’ or the heroine of Indian performing arts. “The nayika is often a woman depicted in wait, or pining for the Lord. Her life is centred on the male character. Yet, by the 18th century, you begin to witness change. One varnam I found had the nayika telling her friend, ‘Kartikeya was promised to me in marriage. If he decides to take up asceticism now, I won’t have it,’” she shares.
The performance utilises poetry, music and even visuals as a tool to enhance the expression of dance. Sarabhai points out, “The limitations are often in the performer, not the form. You can use the English language to craft a limerick, or use it the way Shakespeare did. It is the same with all art forms.”
These influences can also traverse across languages. One example is the Jamaican-English poet, John Agard. “The piece I perform alongside Aditi Ramesh is titled, Yes or No. While we do not use Agard’s verses, it emerges from his concept in the poem,” she says.
Dance to change
Vocalist Aditi Ramesh, who collaborates with Sarabhai in the piece, shares, “I have produced the core music for the piece [Yes or No], and we improvise the rest on stage.” This improvisation requires her to add movements to her vocals. “The movements reflect the idea of women’s progress — one step forward and two steps back,” she says. Ramesh adds that the use of visuals in Sarabhai’s act is one of its highlights, saying, “It is unlike most Bharatanatyam performances, where the audience has to interpret solely by expression.” The performance is not set though. “This is not the same performance as before. The act evolves,” she says.
In the current context of women rising up in angst across societal lines, the performance acquires a different colour. In that sense, Sarabhai’s drive to push the dance form beyond shringara (beauty) is a lesson learnt early in life. She recalls how her mother, the late Mrinalini Sarabhai, turned to Bharatanatyam to shock a conservative audience, and former Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, into awareness about dowry deaths. “I was a very little child, but that influenced my thinking that dance and music are used to talk about society,” she says.
Today will be a chance for the audience to rediscover this experience. As the danseuse says, “The surprise for the audience is always that they cannot imagine that Bharatanatyam could be like this, or say this, while staying within the boundaries of the alphabet.”
ON October 2; 8 pm
AT G5A Warehouse, G5/A, Laxmi Mills Estate, Shakti Mills Lane, Mahalaxmi West.
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