Dancer, activist and artist Mallika Sarabhai has shaped a career that refuses to fit into any one mold; It is always expanding, always moving. In Hyderabad for an Indo-Italian collaborative exhibit, she reflects on changing cities, changing memories and nostalgia. The performance of his troupe, supported by Telangana Tourism, will be held at Shilpakala Vedika on November 21.
The exhibit is called ‘Meanwhile, Elsewhere,’ she says. “It is inspired by the book of Italo Calvino invisible city, This is my favorite book since I was 18 years old. The person who has created this show is Darpan’s artistic director Yadavan Chandran. We’ve been co-creating for over 25 years, and I’ve been telling him for years how exciting and relevant this book is; How it can be interpreted and inspired in so many ways. And yet, he never got around to reading it. Then, on 1 November, his birthday, he went to a book shop in Thiruvananthapuram, and watched the entire performance invisible citySo here we are,” she says,
Ms. Sarabhai remembers dancing in Hyderabad from the “very beginning” of her career, “it would have been in ’79 or ’80,” when the city was “separate.” She considers that one of the cities explored in the exhibit is a “city of memories”, raising the question of what exactly constitutes a memory and what makes Hyderabad now “Hyderabad”.
“We are sitting in a part of Hyderabad that has very little to do with Hyderabad,” she says, and asks what the origins of the city mean to each of us. The production examines this through 12 cities – their names and central ideas are borrowed from Calvino, but “there is nothing else”. Everything beyond that is conceived by the director, “who also wrote it, who also published it”, she adds.
She talks about the challenges and possibilities of telling a story without speech: “How can you tell a story of destruction without a single word through dance?”
She points to the feeling of returning and not recognizing the city after being away for a year, and questions whether it becomes “the city of your memories”, “the city of nostalgia” or “the city you imagined”. Sometimes, she says, a sudden scent can give you a “clumsy feeling.” “That’s the kind of message the show gives,” she says.
Ms. Sarabhai explains how the reception to this avant-garde production has been unexpectedly powerful. ,Meanwhile, elsewhere It was produced and premiered at the Vikram Sarabhai Mahotsav on 28 December last year. Then, by January 9, we were being asked to play it again and again,” she says. At one demonstration, representatives from 30 or 40 countries, including UNESCO’s head of urban planning and Amsterdam’s chief urban planner, were present, attending a major international conference. They watched the show and “held our hands” telling them that everything they talked about – the destruction of the earth and the ocean, climate change, the endless lectures and movies – was conveyed in the 100-minute production.
On the national tour that followed, the emotional impact continued to emerge in surprising ways. She remembers people who came to her and were very impressed, including designer Sabyasachi. “He grabbed me and said, ‘Mallika, in 20 years I have been unable to cry. And I cried through your show. Thank you. You have brought me back in touch with my humanity.’ To him, such reactions signal that something at work is breaking down the distance created by modern life, a distance so great that “we don’t even remember there was another time,” except those old enough to remember it.
Ask her how the exhibit plays with memories and she smiles and says, “You’ll have to come see it.” She explains that much of what is in the production is the past and an attempt to show “what is creating this feeling”. As an artiste who has done a lot of choreography, she keeps exploring new elements every time she performs. She adds, “This is true for all of us actors.” The work is so multilayered that depending on someone’s mood, circumstances or the week they’ve had, “another sentence or another scent or another image” touches a different part of them.
In Ahmedabad, where he has now conducted about 15 shows, some audience members have returned three or four times. “They say they get a different layer every time,” she says.
published – November 20, 2025 01:17 am IST