Mrinalini, Mallika and Anahita Sarabhai in the city on Saturday. Picture by Aranya Sen

Dance and the dynamism to speak through movements bind the three generations of women in the Sarabhai household in Ahmedabad. It?s easy to feel the free-flowing energy that seeps from the octogenarian Mrinalini to her 50-plus daughter Mallika and her teenaged granddaughter Anahita. The three women ? so diverse, yet so united ? came together at GD Birla Sabhagar on Saturday evening to perform the dance piece Two Lives in Dance and One More.

They toured Mumbai, Delhi and Pune with the piece before coming to Calcutta to take part in Kalpana, the dance festival organised by Manipuri exponent Preeti Patel?s group Anjika. Two Lives in Dance and One More started as a 20-minute autobiographical piece with Mrinalini alone, before her family members got in. It also features Revant, Mallika?s 21-year-old son, when he is around.

?I wanted to do something new and thought of doing my life on stage. Then Mallika came along and later Anahita joined us. It?s about whatever is happening in our lives,? smiles Bharatanatyam exponent Mrinalini Sarabhai, also known for her significant contribution to kathakali.

Darpana Dance Academy, which Mrinalini had founded in 1949, now co-directed by Mallika, has branched out into various activities, from development work to television production to folk arts revival. ?I am inspired by nature, poetry and literature. I write my own poems and dance to them,? says Mrinalini, who broke away from the traditional Bharatanatyam mould to create new pieces. In 1963, she staged Memory on dowry deaths and evolved the language to use performing arts to talk about issues.

?In that sense, she is the mother of all that I do, which is using performing arts to talk about things that matter to us. Seventy to 80 per cent of my work is based on issues,? says Mallika, over lunch with mother and daughter at Yo! Foodies in Hiland Park.

?At the table at home, we always talked about issues that mattered to all of us. Vikram (Sarabhai, the scientist) and I have never tried to shield our kids from anything,? adds Mrinalini, Amma to her students and admirers.

For Anahita, who is ?trying to? act and dance but has not yet decided what she wants to do, it?s music and ?the thrill of being in front of a live audience? that pushes her to the stage. ?Being on stage with mother and grandmother is fun because we are all very different people. And I have not been taught by either of them,? says Anahita, a Class XI student who takes dance lessons at Darpana.

With Darpana, Mallika will soon be travelling to the US to stage Hot Talas Cool Ragas. The piece blends music by Trilok Gurtu, Indian Ocean and L. Subramanian, with poetry by Maya Angelou and Deepti Naval.

Of the other three projects she is busy with, one is Staying Alive on why people commit suicide. Next up is a piece Mallika is working on with British digital choreographer Carol Brown. The creation will be premiered at the year-end during the 30th anniversary celebrations of the Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival. The third piece is on Harsh Mandar?s book Unheard Voices, revolving around human rights. Mallika is also travelling across India for a docu-feature on our lesser-known textiles.

On Sunday morning, Mrinalini, Mallika, Amala Shankar, Kumudini Lakhia, Rani Karnaa and Sharmila Biswas will gather for a chat on dance at Calcutta School of Music. In the evening, kathak exponent Kumudini Lakhia will stage Anuma, a collection of choreographies, at GD Birla Sabhagar.

Reshmi Sengupta

A gypsy comes calling

Ruth Margraff at Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre. Picture by Aranya Sen

Ruth Margraff is a playwright, performer, lyricist, lecturer and a powerful voice in contemporary American theatre. At heart though, she is a gypsy. When she doesn?t have a play to write or a teaching assignment to tie her down, Ruth sets off to the Balkan part of the globe with her four-member ensemble, Caf? Antarsia. And it?s difficult to decide if she is more of an academic than a troubadour.

The New Yorker with a curly auburn mop and porcelain skin was in town for a couple of weeks on an exchange programme between India and the US. This required her to hold playwriting workshops for Swayam, Kalam, Calcutta International School and Peaceworks, a project of Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre.

At Peaceworks, the emphasis has been on playwriting, where participants in the age-group of 16 to 29 were asked to write half-hour monologues or dialogues on human rights, women?s issues, discrimination, co-existence and democracy.

With members of Kalam, an NGO working with budding writers from marginalised sections, Ruth worked on a collaborative script. With the women of Swayam, the focus was on developing characters and language of a play. At Calcutta International School, the participating group was initiated into the basics of plot, character, theme and dialogue, before sketching its own short plays.

?Each workshop has been a little different from the other. I taught them a variety of readings but also gave them room for thought,? says Ruth, who works with graduate playwrights in the US and is acclaimed for her operas ? The Elektra Fugues, Red Frogs, Night Vision and Voice of the Dragon, where she had collaborated with jazz composer Fred Ho.

The latest production she is working on is set in 1889, on the Greek coast of Crete, centring around the rebellion against the Ottoman empire. The piece fuses traditional Greek tunes with characters and is aimed at the American opera audience.

Ruth keeps going back to Greece, its traditions and music. Yet, it is modern-day Greece she is more interested in. Her Caf? Antarsia, for instance, uses theatrical folk songs inspired by Greek blues and Balkan gypsy music.

?Cafe Antarsia is something of world folk opera, but not in the classical sense. I like exploring boundaries between theatre and opera, between music and theatre. I am a self-taught singer and I have explored a lot with my voice,? adds Ruth, who has composed the lyrics for Caf? Antarsia and has taken it to Greece, Turkey, Serbia, Russia and England.

The second play she is busy scripting is based in Bosnia-Herzegovina. ?It is inspired by my mother who has worked as a peacemaker in Bosnia,? smiles Ruth, who mentions Emily Dickinson as one of her influences.