| Maker | Aditi Mangaldas |
| Duration | 75 min |
| Part of | India Dance Festival |
"... Spectacular dancing with raw passion, powerful pauses, emotive gestures, and stunning stage mastery. Forbidden got a standing ovation and announced itself as a potential gamechanger for Indian dance. "
— EasternEye UK, 2023
"... Earnest and sensitive albeit frank... Heady, hazy and sometimes unsettling... a refined but radical image... "
— The Guardian, UK, 2023
"Marvelous performer who commands the stage throughout... she dances with great passion, sometimes with ferocity. With abandon too... exceptional performer. Quite compelling in every way. Every moment is imbued with meaning. Even the stillness seems charged. "
— Seeing Dance, UK, 2023
"... A captivating experience... erupts in energetic brilliance... demonstrating her awe-inspiring control while creating an impactful picture... Mangaldas certainly commands the space. "
— The Straights Times, Singapore, 2023
Dance star Aditi presents impressive solo
Aditi Mangaldas is one of the undisputed greats of Indian Kathak dance. By inventively incorporating modern elements, she propels this dance form to new heights. Aditi is praised for her innovative, refreshing choreographies, not to mention her exceptional, refined dance technique. For the festival, she travels from India especially to The Hague to present her impressive solo FORBIDDEN
About Forbidden
Why is the world scared of female sexual desire? Why are women all over the world, from conservative as well as liberal societies sanctioned, judged, controlled, hounded and eventually punished to have the courage to own their desire? What is at the root of this fear?
Evidence from all cultures is the subterranean elixir that nourishes the making of FORBIDDEN, a solo by Aditi Mangaldas which traverses through a gamut of emotions and states of being, while reclaiming and owning desire.
The work is in three parts:
- Awakening: Dream, Fragrant flower, Cage
- Playing the Game: Denial, Adornment, Seduction, Rage
- Burning: My story, Consigning to flames all that is FORBIDDEN
Aditi Mangaldas is a leading dancer and choreographer in the classical Indian dance form of Kathak. With extensive training under the leading gurus of Kathak, Shrimati Kumudini Lakhia and late Pundit Birju Maharaj, Aditi is today recognised for her artistry, technique, eloquence and characteristic energy that mark every performance. Besides dancing and choreographing classical productions, both solo and group, she has broken new ground by using her knowledge and experience of Kathak as a springboard to evolve a contemporary dance vocabulary, infused with the spirit of the classical.
Korzo Zaal