About Mallika: The Creator

Gender Bender - co-director, performer, and choreographer

A fun lesson on gender injustice for young people created by Mallika Sarabhai and Yadavan Chandran.

Spark - co-director, performer, and choreographer

BBC India and Darpana came together to celebrate Indian women in sports on the 8th of March, International Women's Day. With a musical score by T.M.Krishna, the dance was conceived, directed, filmed, and edited by Yadavan Chandran.

Arid - co-director, performer, and choreographer

Whatever the naysayers contend, the effects of climate change and the damage we are doing to the earth, are everywhere. From the pandemic that has transformed us into scared homebodies to the tsunamis, floods, and droughts we are warned every day of the precipice we hurtle towards. To bring this message artfully to the world on World Water Day for the CNBC network, Yadavan Chandran created this piece by and on Mallika Sarabhai. The poem is by John Agard, the music by Raag Sethi, and the vocals by Aditi Ramesh.

Still I Rise - performer, and choreographer

Mallika Sarabhai's contemporary cross-cultural interpretation of Maya Angelou's I Rise, was premiered at the Tribeca Arts Centre for the Battery Dance Company and Jonathan Hollander in ….. It was created digitally in 2020 for #ifwedonotrise on a day when 500 civil society organizations got together to speak up against the shrinking of democratic values and institutions in India.

Dance Unlocked - co-director, performer, and choreographer

That was a world of greed, of want, of winning, of more, more, more. This must be the world of caring, giving, sharing, cooperation, and generosity. Towards this new world, Darpana and Natarani bring the dance of togetherness and reaching out. May the spirit of dance liberate.

The Colours Of Her Heart - co-director, performer, choreographer

With British composer-singer Samia Malik and director-writer Yadavan Chandran, this six-women performance traces the real stories of the performers and their victories over trauma, and violence, paving th4e way for a dialogue in a post-MeToo world.

Mother River - co-director, performer, choreographer

Mother River is about birth and renewal, a re-finding of soul energy and of dreams. It is an ode to the Sabarmati, to the old Natarani, to the new, and to Darpana’s founder, Mrinalini. It is about the cycles of life, the lows and highs that are inevitable, and about finding the ananda through it all.

Finding My Voice - co-director, performer, choreographer

The lyrics for Bharata Natyam were written many hundred years ago when humanity’s primary concern was the longing to find God or be united with the eternal One. The lyrics were primarily in Tamil and Telugu with later dancers bringing in the voices of Kabir, Meera, and other medieval poets. Today some of us wish to speak of other, more current issues and thoughts, still using the sophistry of the dance style of Bharata Natyam. Finding My Voice brings to the audience’s thoughts on global warming, live-in relationships, an atheist's relationship with the Goddess, sexual preferences, and the growing into reliance in the world, all in the strictest and most complex Pandanallur Bharatanatyam vocabulary.

Kadak Badshahi - performer, choreographer

A scintillating, super successful Happening on the 600-year history of Ahmedabad city.

Unearthed - principal performer and storyteller, choreographer

Based on the Marquez story, The Very Old Man With The Enormous Wings, this was an adaptation based in India, a story of prejudice, superstition, and hatred for ‘the other’.

And Lalla Sang - choreographer and principal performer

Based on the writings of the 12th-century mystic Lal Ded and directed by Yadavan Chandran, this magical performance brought to life the surreal imagery of beautiful verse.

With Love - co-director, choreographer, scriptwriter and performer

Based on the life, work, and times of Rabindranath Tagore, a performance co-directed with Steve Miller, the dance theatre production brought Tagore to the stage, highlighting his little-known love for Argentinian writer and poet Victoria O’campo.

Sunehri Aashayen –director, performer, choreographer

Sunehri Aashayen is a performance specially commissioned for the Indian Embassy in the United Arab Emirates dealing, in an entertaining and sometimes lighthearted way, with the many problems - psychological, economic, infrastructural, and physical - that face the laborers from the Sub-continent on a daily basis. After research and consultations with the Embassy on the conditions of these laborers, the performance was created to try to explore ways in which the workers themselves can help themselves. Amongst others, the piece tries to touch upon barely spoken issues such as the absolute loneliness and feelings of isolation, alcoholism, and the propensity to waste money rather than save.

Khadi Gaatha - director, performer, choreographer

KhadiGaatha traces the history of khadi and handlooms in India. The piece highlights Gandhiji’s use of khadi as an instrument to dislodge the British Raj, as well as traces references to the metaphor of weaving, of the warp and the weft, in Hindu mythology and in the Vedas. The performance is a slice of India’s history from the Vedic age to the present.

Phedre in India, Phedre in Hindi - performer

The title role of Racine’s Phedre is an Indo-French production of this play, directed by Astrid Bas and premiered at the 32nd Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival in Ahmedabad in December 2007.