Bindaas in Dance

She likes to dance her own dance and she does it exceedingly well. Nirupama Dutt on Aditi Mangaldas

Electrifying! That is the most befitting adjective in describing the art of Aditi Mangaldas who was schooled in Kathak under renowned Gurus but who chose to go her own way, and on the strength of her classical training, she has evolved her own dance vocabulary. In the city to dance at the three- day dance fiesta, Aditi is very forthright in talking about the direction her art has taken, even if it has raised eyebrows of the ‘pundits’.
How was she able to break free thus from the very classified structure of classical dance? “It happened so because I came from a family liberated with responsibility. My father’s side, they were all entrepreneurs and my mother’s side was made up by academics. I grew up with discussion all round me and learnt never to take anything at face value.
One of the leading dancers in the country today, she excels in both traditional and contemporary idioms. She started learning Kathak from Kumudni Lakhia at Ahemdabad at the age of five. Her second Guru was the great Birju Maharaj at Delhi. Looking back in gratitude at the care they put in grooming her, Aditi says: “From Kumudniji, I learnt how the body relates to the dance and from Maharaj, I learnt the relationship of the soul to the body.”
But at twenty-five, she broke free, for she says: “I felt that I had to do my own dance. I was absolutely bindaas about it, even if it meant hurting my mentors who would have rather had me following the path of tradition. It has been an exciting phase after that and while traditional Kathak is taught at her Drishtikon Dance Foundation in Delhi, she experiments with her repertory of dancers schooled in the classical. How did she deal with the criticism that came her way? “If it is constructive criticism, I am open to re-thinking. I am like a bamboo that survives the storm best and yet remains a bamboo and does not turn into a banyan.”
Well said and the evening that followed the tête-à-tête, found Aditi dancing out the song of the seasons at its poetic best.