Rather than bring one full-length piece, Aditi Mangaldas decided to show substantial extracts from two works, Uncharted Seas and Timeless.
That way, audiences could see for themselves how she not only keeps the traditions of kathak alive and vital in new choreographies, but also weaves contemporary dance techniques into those traditions in "the search for the intangible."
Her concept of the intangible embraces the divine and the profoundly human: love and freedom, truth and beauty being as cosmically mystical as God. This inspires wonderful excursions into the heart of rhythm, the energies of light, the ambience of space, the structures of movement and the power of stillness.
You can, as ever with her choreographies – and especially with her own utterly compelling performances – simply relax into the joyful satisfaction of watching the steps unfold, hearing the music conversing with them. But that pleasure increases limitlessly if you engage with the ideas that shape those interactions. Uncharted Seas opens with a darkness sparked through by hand-held bowls of fire. A voice sings out of that darkness, and it's like an irresistible summons to Mangaldas and her dancers to give their bodies over to the whirling spins, the percussing footwork that is the distinctive mark of Kathak. Timeless takes the time-shifts in pulsing rhythms – and the spoken, syllabic statements of those inventively fragmented rhythms – into a modern dimension.
Men and women are costumed in similar sheeny trousers and tops, the dance is enclosed in a light installation, the musicians come and go on-stage, Mangaldas herself speaks of the mysteries of time, but in truth the exuberant finesse of her dancers makes you lose track of time. By now, sadly, this remarkable event has gone.
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