Mallika Sarabhai: Life Through Invisible Cities | Dance, Politics & Resistance

Mallika Sarabhai: Life Through Invisible Cities | Dance, Politics & Resistance

What if a life could be mapped like Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, each chapter a new landscape, each memory a new city?

In this episode of The Soft Record, we journey with Mallika Sarabhai - dancer, activist, writer, and political voice - through 11 “cities” that illuminate her extraordinary life.

From her childhood in Ahmedabad to her lifelong work at Darpana; from negotiating with her body and beauty standards to raising children; from landmark productions like Sita’s Daughters to standing with ASHA workers and grassroots women; from her politics to her personal ruptures — each city reveals Mallika’s fearless search for truth through art.

Topics include:
– Darpana as a living space of art, nature, and protest
– Growing up between parents, politics, and Ahmedabad’s changing face
– Her struggle with anorexia and learning to inhabit the body differently
– Writing and performing Sita’s Daughters and Shakti
– Speaking truth to power during the ASHA workers’ protests
– Negotiating relationships with her children and her legacy as a mother
– Dance as resistance, performance as protest, and life as freefall

If Italo Calvino gave us invisible cities, Mallika Sarabhai gives us cities of courage, movement, and imagination.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction: Building the lens of Calvino's imagined cities
05:55 - Zaira: Memories & architecture of Darpana
22:36 - Zenobia: The balancing act between the body and performance
34:18 - Tamara: The stories behind her body of work
48:53 - Euphemia: The unseen part of Mallika's creative life
01:00:36 - Ersilia: Memories of estranged relationships
01:06:59 - Zamrud: About her Memoir and the gaze within
01:09:42 - Aglaura: Politics and its institutionalization
01:21:03 - Eusapia: The shadows of her parents
01:24:53 - Perinthia: Inhabiting different systems of belief
01:28:38 - Leonia: Of old selves, regrets and reinventions
01:33:11 - Baucis: Her inner sanctum


📍 The Soft Record is KindleCast’s space for longform, intimate conversations with artists, writers, and thinkers who resist the rush.