Esplanade Presents | Kalaa Utsavam 2023 • FORBIDDEN by Aditi Mangaldas (India) • An Esplanade Co-Commission

Event Details

“I was again enthralled by the perfection of Aditi’s technique, by the way she dynamised stage space... The music offered a powerful parallel track to her movement and her light designer created his own magic without overwhelming the dance…”  – Shanta Gokhale, eminent cultural writer and dance critic

Through this powerful new solo work, acclaimed dancer and choreographer Aditi Mangaldas explores the fear and taboos associated with female sexual desire that have been historically and culturally inculcated. She poses the question: why are women the world over sanctioned, judged, controlled, hounded and punished when they find the courage to embrace their own desires, in both conservative and liberal societies?

In the words of mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik, “... fantasy frightens us, especially female fantasy… One way of regulating fantasy has been by propagating stories where women who pursue their desires are viewed as dangerous, hence need to be restrained for social good.”

The work is presented in three parts—Awakening roots itself in the words dreams, fragrant flower, and cage, Playing the Game explores denial, adornment, seduction and rage. The work ends with Burning, touching on her story and in her words, “consigning to flames all that is FORBIDDEN.”

Drawing from a gamut of cultures and expressing through her practice of contemporary dance based on kathak, Aditi traverses a spectrum of emotion and states of being, reclaiming and owning her desire.  FORBIDDEN is a bold, evocative and charged quest for the liberation of women’s sexual desire.

Concept, Choreography and Performance: Aditi Mangaldas
Dramaturge: Farooq Chaudhry
Light Design: Michael Hulls
Music Composition: Nicki Wells
Costume Design: Kimie Nakano
Mentor: Morag Deyes

Commissioned by: Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company – The Drishtikon Dance Foundation
Co-Commissioned by: Sadler’s Wells, London; National Centre for The Performing Arts, Mumbai; Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, Singapore
Supported by: Dance City, Newcastle and Rajika Puri, USA

Choreographer’s note by Aditi Mangaldas
Artists are driven to explore subjects that consume them. That drive is a possession which compels artists to face and share provocative issues.

“It’s extremely important to recognise that none of us are above social conditioning; no matter how much we would like to believe that it doesn’t impact us, it does…”
– Devrupa Rakshit, The Swaddle

There are countless insidious ways that taboos creep into one's daily existence. Social structures, mythology, influences from popular culture, the culture of shame that women live with, all become a subconscious stream that shape our behaviour.

As an artist, I feel compelled to confront these taboos. FORBIDDEN has been realised after months of internalisation, debate, troughs and peaks; as each collaborator offered nuance to the work, till I found myself immersed in it. Sexuality is private but the taboos attached to female sexuality requires and demands taking a stand on the universal, public and personal front.

As I venture on this journey, I have held the words of Jalaluddin Rumi, close to my being, “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free. Dance until you shatter yourself!”