Aditi Mangaldas, Forbidden Review ★★★★★

A climate of intense, warm sensuality pervades this one-woman show that looks at female desire both unleashed and suppressed.

The performer is Aditi Mangaldas, a New Delhi-based dancer and choreographer whose contemporary style is influenced by Kathak, one of the major forms of Indian classical dance, drawing on its dizzying spins, percussive footwork and dynamic phrasing.

In her 2022 work Forbidden, which was co-commissioned by Sadler's Wells, she uses her immensely expressive dance to look into a pressing question: why is it that the world over, from the most conservative to the most liberal society, women who have the courage to own their sexual desire are controlled, sanctioned and punished?

On a stage dreamily lit by Michael Hulls, we first see Mangaldas lying down in what’s clearly a warm night, her body restless with awakened desire. Slowly she stretches, then rolls on her side. Her hands caress her body. Her legs extend, then bend. This whole sequence portrays something all women can easily recognise. It is the opening of a three-part performance and its entitled:‘Awakening: Dream, Fragrant flower, Cage’.

As she rises, we can hear the traditional ankle bells.This section is the closest to pure Kathak, as she swirls around the stage, stamping, arms folding and unfolding, hands fluttering like butterflies. It’s happy and free until she kneels down and chains fall from the rafters all around her.

In section two the stage is darker. After a brief pause, Mangaldas returns, this time with head and face veiled. Although both the veil and Nicki Wells’s varied and eloquent soundtrack, that combines vocals, tabla, pakhawaj (an Indian two-headed drum) and cello with classical compositions and spoken text, point discreetly towards the Middle East, the reach of this section, entitled ‘Playing the Game: Denial, Adornment, Seduction, Rage’, is universal.

She wraps all the chains around herself. She speaks to advise woman how best to seduce a man – ‘sweeten your breath... wear long earrings that dangle... ‘ but then in a moment of rebellion she advises, ‘paint the soles of your feet red, so that when you step on him, you mark him.’ And slowly she removes her veil.

Section three – ‘Burning: My story, Consigning to flames all that is Forbidden’ – is perhaps the least successful. Pegged onto a slightly implausible story, it asks why women are banned from exploring their sensuality, their desire and their fantasies.

The dancing is a little more generic here, though Michael Hulls’s lighting - intense, changeable, creating his characteristic pools of milky light – tells its own story. As she removes the chains, Mangaldas is finally free.

We are not. We leave the theatre still imbued with that powerful sensuality. Mangaldas may not have entirely answered her questions, but she has most certainly left her mark on her audience