Renowned choreographer and performer Aditi Mangaldas was working in the studio in 2012 when the horrific rape and murder of a 23-year-old student – who was named Nirbhaya, meaning fearless in Hindi, as her real name was not allowed to be released – took place on a bus in Mangaldas’ home city of Delhi. WITHIN is Mangaldas’ response to this barbaric act which although condemned worldwide continues to be repeated in various forms.
Created and premiered in 2013, WITHIN is a signature work for Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company and has been performed in theatres around the world. These two performances at Sadler’s Wells, on 27 and 28 November, are the first performances in the UK since 2014.
Impelled by the Nirbhaya case, Mangaldas uses her virtuoso Kathak dance skills to create an intense and contemplative work exploring the duality within all of us, where humanity and brutality, masculine and feminine, good and bad, connect. WITHIN goes from darkness to light in two distinct yet connected works, KNOTTED and UNWRAPPED.
KNOTTED, the opening part, is a dark vision set to an apocalyptic recorded soundtrack by Ish Shehrawat + diFfuSed beats (Sound Reasons). Eleven dancers, including Mangaldas herself, are subject both to their own brutality and that of others. The dancers struggle to cross the stage, endlessly turning and falling, trapped in a Kathak technique stretched to breaking point. A lone dancer – Mangaldas – shakes, starts and twitches.
She wants the audience to feel the horror of it throughout the interval.
In the second part, UNWRAPPED, the dancers step into the aftermath in classical Kathak mode, joined by percussion players and a singer on stage. With the dancers’ faces wrapped, the work unravels into elegant formal shapes, with mesmerising Kathak spins and rhythmic footwork, the patterning of the ensemble showing a different way for humans to be. A central solo for Mangaldas showcases her exquisite storytelling and classical technique, while her narration of poetry is then taken up by the musicians – the music for UNWRAPPED was composed by Mahesh Vinayakram. The performance concludes in a celebration of humanity, love and beauty.
Considered a maverick in India, Mangaldas is unafraid to confront social and present-day concerns. Her work was last seen at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in 2024 in MEHEK, an unspoken love story created and performed with Aakash Odedra. She presented her acclaimed solo productions FORBIDDEN, an exploration of female sexual desire, in 2023 and her classical Kathak solo production, IMMERSED in 2017 at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre. She also presented her group choreography ‘Inter_rupted’ in 2016 for the Dance Umbrella Festival at the Barbican Centre. Mangaldas is recognised for her artistry, technique, eloquence and unique contemporary style.
Mangaldas says: “Two major factors influenced my response to the horror of the Nirbhaya case and the choreography of WITHIN. One was a quote from Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti: “To understand yourself you must create a mirror that reflects accurately what you are”. The second was the Jain Siddha sculpture. It’s a cutout, a negative image, and it represents the transformation that can happen with what is already within each of us. If you hold the sculpture up to the sky, eternity is what you experience. However, if you hold it up to a wall or a lock, then there is no way out, you are locked up within. The concluding section of WITHIN refers to a poem by Hazrat Shah Niaz which says that if we find the humanity within us, then our lives reflect love and beauty everywhere. That is how the entire piece moves from darkness to light.”
