In this episode of Why We Dance, host Mia Tate sits down with legendary Indian classical dancer, activist, and cultural force Mallika Sarabhai to explore how dance became her language for truth, resistance, and transformation.
Movement as Courage. Dance as Truth.
In this powerful episode of Why We Dance, Mia Tate welcomes Mallika Sarabhai—world-renowned Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancer, actress, author, and fearless activist—for a conversation that stretches far beyond the stage.
Mallika reflects on growing up in an extraordinary family deeply rooted in Mahatma Gandhi’s movement, her early resistance to becoming a dancer, and the intellectual path that initially pulled her away from the arts. She shares the pivotal “Eureka moment” that called her back to dance—and into partnership with her mother, the legendary Mrinalini Sarabhai.
Together, Mia and Mallika explore how dance became a shared language between mother and daughter, a vehicle for confronting injustice, and a lifelong tool for asking uncomfortable questions. Mallika speaks candidly about using art to challenge power, facing government opposition and hate mail, and why humor, discipline, and vulnerability are essential to survival—both onstage and off.
Their conversation weaves through themes of womanhood, courage, authenticity, and the radical power of movement to communicate what words cannot. This episode is a testament to living fully—embracing both light and darkness—and choosing truth, even when it costs something.
It’s a conversation about legacy, resistance, and why dance, at its best, is an act of profound honesty.
Episode Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction to Why We Dance
(00:57) Mallika Sarabhai: A Journey of Movement
(02:29) Early Life and Family Legacy
(04:01) Discovering Dance and Early Resistance
(05:01) The Eureka Moment: Choosing Dance
(06:14) Dancing with Her Mother and Building a Company
(11:30) Dance as a Language for Social Change
(23:09) Speaking Truth to Power and Government Opposition
(26:08) Purpose, Perseverance, and Personal Cost
(27:52) The Strength and Struggles of Women
(31:22) Responding to Hate with Compassion
(32:08) Vulnerability as a Source of Power
(38:54) Encouraging Critical Thinking Through Art
(45:58) Humor, Heartbreak, and Humanity in Dance
(51:37) Universal Truths and Living Authentically
Links & Resources:
[00:00:00] Mia Tate: Welcome to Why We Dance. Today, I could not be more excited to introduce our guest. Mallika Sarabhai was my first guest I wanted on this show when I. Began the whole idea of this journey. She is a world renowned, classically trained dancer in India. She is an actress, an author, an activist. She uses movement to break barriers. And has done so for five decades. It is my absolute honor to introduce Malika to Why We Dance. So honored. you for joining us.
[00:00:47] Mallika Sarabhai: To be here.
[00:00:50] Mia Tate: Uh, you look beautiful.
[00:00:53] Mallika Sarabhai: Thank you
[00:00:54] Mia Tate: Um, I have to tell you that is the truth. Uh, when I birthed this idea, when this idea came to me, I, um, it, I was working on a documentary that was more about my story and a dance. Situation that had helped me during a trying time, I just, it wasn't quite sitting right, and I thought was actually going into the grocery store.
[00:01:19] Mia Tate: I'll never forget the moment. And I just heard why we dance, and I knew in that moment it wasn't. Just my story or this particular story of me doing salsa in Cuba. It was all of us and why we dance, what that pole is. And so I started diving into stories and I found you, and I was like, that's it, that, that's, that's the big picture I'm talking about.
[00:01:46] Mallika Sarabhai: very kind of you.
[00:01:49] Mia Tate: So I would love to start this episode, how I start all the episodes, um, asking my guests, what does movement mean to you?
[00:02:00] Mallika Sarabhai: Breath.
[00:02:03] Mia Tate: Yes. Breath. Yep. I, uh, I had a similar. Answer for mine, um, I had kind of stopped breathing and returning to dance after a time away was remembering to breathe again when we get in those moments where we have to dance. Right.
[00:02:25] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes, very much.
[00:02:29] Mia Tate: So, Malika, can you introduce, um, the beginning of your story so we can kind of set the foundation where you were born? Your parents. I don't wanna give too much away. This is your story with my research, but can you take us to the beginning?
[00:02:49] Mallika Sarabhai: My parents both came from rather extraordinary families, uh, that were part of, uh, mahatma gandhi's movement building. What would be free? India, both families. One from deep in the south, one from Gujarat, where I live breaking every taboo because, uh everyone had intermarried, everyone had broken state barriers, language barriers, fallen in love, and I'm talking of the turn of the previous century.
[00:03:21] Mallika Sarabhai: It was, it was, uh, taboo in most parts of the world, but they had done it. And, uh, both my parents, uh, met and fell in love again. My father was one of India's most well-known scientists, died, uh, at the age of 51. Um, CIA operatives biography tells us killed by the CIA. A because he would not sign a nuclear deal, but we shall leave it, that was one of India's most famous dancers. So I grew up in a family of, uh, people trying to build independent India. In their own ways. Um, and in the, in, in looking at a mother worked so hard physically that I as a lazy and fat child thought, this is not for me. I can't do.
[00:04:14] Mia Tate: Hmm.
[00:04:14] Mallika Sarabhai: But because every single friend of mine from school came to my mother's dance classes, I was sort of peer pressured into doing it because I, there was nobody to play with anywhere during those hours. So I willy-nilly learned dance, uh, enjoyed being on stage, but did not enjoy the hard work. And, uh, the one sort of clarity in my mind was that I don't want to become a dancer. did a management degree, did an economics honors degree, did a PhD with a professor at the Harvard Business School, uh, in why we, why India indulges in corruption. Um. Fell in love. Uh, decided the man I was going to marry was a male chauvinist pig. Broke it off, went into a terrible depression, woke up with my Eureka movement saying All I want to do is dance. Brief history.
[00:05:14] Mia Tate: Oh, that is, I know. I have so many questions. Was it, wasn't it? read, I, I loved your book. Um. Free fall. Experiments with life. Experiments with, do I have that with Li? My Experiment with Living. I love that title. But um, was very visual, what I read. It was a culmination of ending the engagement. And also kind of maybe coming to terms with the death of your father at such a young age. And there's a part you talk about where you're sitting in a chair that you had kind of sat in for maybe
[00:05:53] Mallika Sarabhai: I still have that chair. I still sit in it. I moved home 42 years ago, but the chair came with me.
[00:06:02] Mia Tate: Sounds like a very powerful chair, and your feet were propped up on a window sill and you were looking out at the river. And that was your eureka
[00:06:12] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah, it was incredible. And for my mother, it was like a second inning because she had my father emotionally so much that she really didn't want to dance after he died. And six years later, my coming to it was like, I mean, it was an incredible partnership we had for the next 20 years. So it was, uh,
[00:06:33] Mia Tate: yeah. Tell me. Tell me about that. I mean, this, just your companion through this, through the, so much of your story.
[00:06:45] Mallika Sarabhai: I've had two or three strange astro moments and one of the first was when I danced with her and I remember feeling that I was watching two bodies on stage and that it was the same person in two bodies. And I remember sort of my consciousness hovering over the stage and it, it's still very real for me. that was the kind relationship we had. She would, while choreographing start a movement, and I would know exactly where to take it, never thought of myself as a choreographer. I just thought of myself as the perfect clay for her to model. But it was, it was strange because you know, people try and make you compete with each other.
[00:07:32] Mallika Sarabhai: If you're a mother and daughter, if you're two sisters dancing. And they would try and make my mother think that, oh, she's so much younger and more beautiful and so on, and they would make me think, oh, she's so much better a dancer. And we would just laugh because there was really no competition. There was no sense of being separate.
[00:07:53] Mia Tate: That shared that soul, that shared soul
[00:07:56] Mallika Sarabhai: yes, yes.
[00:07:58] Mia Tate: in two bodies that you witnessed?
[00:07:58] Mallika Sarabhai: And we, we say how strange that people, people, even try.
[00:08:05] Mia Tate: yeah. I find that a very strange thing about culture as well. Um, I grew up with a dancing mom and, uh, I, and I have two daughters. I've never understood that narrative that is pushed about the competitive, you know, I mean, one enhances the other and my mind, and it is, it's like this shared experience that we get to do together.
[00:08:29] Mallika Sarabhai: And now I share it with my son. Uh, he and I dance together all the time.
[00:08:34] Mia Tate: He's a dancer?
[00:08:35] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes, he's a dancer and we, we do a lot of duets together it's just, uh, it's like, it's like the umbilical cord coming back, being uncut.
[00:08:49] Mia Tate: Yes. Do you feel like that in particular, in particularly because you dance together or just the connection of the relationship?
[00:08:59] Mallika Sarabhai: very close, but I think dancing together is very special.
[00:09:06] Mia Tate: Yes. Something I would imagine about being able to move communicate in that language that you don't need words for.
[00:09:15] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes, it is also a shared and secret joy that we have that nobody in the audience or understands. And it's like, it's like smiling inside yourself, uh, but not smiling outta spite, smiling outta the shared joy of it
[00:09:36] Mia Tate: So when you're smiling inside of yourself, where do you feel it in your body?
[00:09:41] Mallika Sarabhai: everywhere in every cell of my body, every every cell of my skin. I feel it now as I'm talking to you
[00:09:51] Mia Tate: I'm honored. I do too. I, I smiling inside my body is, I'm taking I'm taking that one with me. Me. That's beautiful. So then as we keep moving along your timeline, your incredible timeline, we have, and you've come back to dance, had that eureka moment. And then what is your first step?
[00:10:18] Mia Tate: Okay, so you get off the chair
[00:10:20] Mallika Sarabhai: and I, my mother's bedroom. What?
[00:10:28] Mia Tate: I'm gonna do it. After all, she was probably like, yes. Just waiting patiently.
[00:10:36] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah,
[00:10:37] Mia Tate: So then you started your company together. Is that
[00:10:41] Mallika Sarabhai: I dunno. My mother's company had been on for 30 years before me.
[00:10:46] Mia Tate: Okay,
[00:10:46] Mallika Sarabhai: She,
[00:10:47] Mia Tate: it was part, you went to her
[00:10:48] Mallika Sarabhai: I joined the company. I joined the company and started training with the company. She started trying to, uh, dance pieces where we could dance together. she took some classical stuff. She took some, um, you know, my mother's the one who was the first classical Indian dancer to start what we today call contemporary Indian dance.
[00:11:13] Mallika Sarabhai: It's nothing to do with the West. It's, it's coming from our roots. Like ballet was your roots.
[00:11:20] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:11:21] Mallika Sarabhai: uh, my mother was a,
[00:11:23] Mia Tate: Amazing.
[00:11:24] Mallika Sarabhai: she was, uh, she always felt that dancing was a language, but that needed. To be used not only for what history and tradition had passed on to us, which was mostly things to do with spirituality, but that if she saw violence in society, she had a language that could speak of it without words. uh, so I grew up thinking all dancers did that, that all dancers used, dance to talk of issues that bothered them in society. I was very rudely shaken when I grew up and came to see the work of other artists and realized that social conscience was not part of makeup, but she started
[00:12:10] Mia Tate: that.
[00:12:11] Mallika Sarabhai: so that we could, work together.
[00:12:15] Mallika Sarabhai: Both have significant roles that spoke to the world. So I was brought into it through her choreography in actual fact, only watching it, but actually dancing it.
[00:12:31] Mia Tate: That's amazing. That was a question I had, which. I will correct now. It was At what point did you decide to use this art form and pivot for social change? You know, become an activist, but you were raised an activist.
[00:12:45] Mallika Sarabhai: I was raised an activist,
[00:12:46] Mia Tate: the language.
[00:12:47] Mallika Sarabhai: but you know, I told you that I never felt that I could choreograph it was I, my professional journey started in 1977, and it was in 1984 that the International Theater Director Peter Brook, me to be the lead in his international production of one of India's greatest epics, the Maha Barta. it was through the five years that I spent doing that, that I realized that my just doing one woman character was having such a. Huge impact on women across the world. And I sort of came out saying, my God, I have the language for activism. Why am I seeing it as my language of the arts and activism? This is my language. why I had seen my mother use it. I never thought that I would be into saying, there is no other way to create because nobody is going to create what's in my head. And uh, it was very hard, but it was the end of that that that made me both convinced that the arts were an amazing language for change and forced me into becoming a creator
[00:14:09] Mia Tate: Wow. When you say it was very hard, why?
[00:14:15] Mallika Sarabhai: ego, I think,
[00:14:18] Mia Tate: Hmm.
[00:14:18] Mallika Sarabhai: I think. of failure. And fear of failure comes from ego because
[00:14:24] Mia Tate: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:25] Mallika Sarabhai: of failure is essentially what will the world say if I fall flat on my face? And that is ego. And I, uh, the first piece that I did, I created was a piece that sort of brought together theater and classical, two dust, two styles of classical dance, and one of India's ancient martial arts forms, which I learned for the piece. And there was a piece about a 15th century princess who is obsessed by the God, Krishna and, and her songs, our sung in every household in India, even today. I was portraying her as this rebel, she's always thought of as a devotee of Krishna, but for me, she was a rebel who broke every single rule of royalty, single rule of being a woman, a devoted wife, a devoted daughter, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:15:19] Mallika Sarabhai: But nobody thinks of her as a rebel. And I wanted people to understand the kind of rebellion she had to manifest to do what she did. I remember thinking that have to sing, and I had learned classical vocal singing for 12 years and got gold medals for it, but was just not confident of singing. And I remember sitting in front of a mirror for about 10 or 15 days talking to myself and saying, what is more important that the audience calls you a great singer? you get Mira's story across. And I remember psyching myself to say, how do we know that? She sang, well, maybe she croaked. songs are beautiful. Her lyrics are very beautiful. And today they're sung by very famous singers. But we don't know that she sang well. I mean,
[00:16:11] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Mallika Sarabhai: it doesn't matter. And, and
[00:16:14] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:16:14] Mallika Sarabhai: some senses, that was a great turning point for me because it didn't matter if people thought I was a fabulous dancer.
[00:16:21] Mallika Sarabhai: It didn't matter whether people thought I was a beautiful woman. It didn't matter if people thought anything because I had to say what I had to say and I had to say it in the way I thought most appropriate. it was a, it was a great cathartic moment. And I think my work since then has been fueled by that breaking of that fear and that ego.
[00:16:46] Mia Tate: How old were you when
[00:16:48] Mallika Sarabhai: this happened, I, I was 32.
[00:16:53] Mia Tate: That's so young and brilliant to get that lesson. You know, it's, I've found it's such a gift given a little bit later in my life, you know, this letting go of ego, or at least acknowledging ego and like pushing a aside attachment to what people think. It's just so freeing. It frees you up to create. Um, I wanna ask you a question about. Story. I heard an interview with you that I love, I'm gonna find quote here. Uh, you just talked about story and that being the biggest part, getting out of the way of this concept of, you know, needing to do it perfect or wondering what people, um, will take from it and making sure you get the story across.
[00:17:41] Mia Tate: And you said that that's been your work ever since is to keep people in the seats to, um. Keep them. They can agree with you, they can disagree with you. They can like it or not like it, but engaging enough, creative enough that you keep them in the seats. Um, and then your quote is, A lot of theater is very worthy, but boring as
[00:18:06] Mallika Sarabhai: as hell and it gives theater such a bad name. Especially,
[00:18:14] Mia Tate: tell me.
[00:18:16] Mallika Sarabhai: there's so much street theater being used by organizations in your part of the world, but here they just murder it.
[00:18:28] Mia Tate: I love how you put that. It's worthy. These are topics that are worthy of discussion, but boring as hell.
[00:18:35] Mallika Sarabhai: Which is why I think
[00:18:37] Mia Tate: So tell me.
[00:18:37] Mallika Sarabhai: in some ways I think, um, our institution is unique because my mother and people who worked with her here in the theater department and in the puppetry department were very skilled in their art before they had a social conscience. So it was not that they had a social conscience and then said maybe we should use this. was that they were very skilled performers and I think what, what our institution is. Unique four that
[00:19:15] Mia Tate: Mm.
[00:19:16] Mallika Sarabhai: we know the pulse of the audience, whether it's a rural audience, whether it's um, I don't know, Kennedy Center, it doesn't matter. We are performing there everywhere. So we know how not to bore the audience, how to keep there because the entertainment value or the visual value or the storytelling value is high enough for you to be there, even if you think what I'm saying is completely wrong.
[00:19:49] Mia Tate: Yes. And when talking about, as you say, the skilled performers, starting with the skilled performers, um, what does discipline mean to you now?
[00:20:05] Mallika Sarabhai: Getting up every morning and going down to the dance floor and running up and down the theater to get my aerobics right. And then doing yoga and then rehearsing I'd much rather stay in bed with my dogs.
[00:20:20] Mia Tate: What kind of dogs I just have to
[00:20:22] Mallika Sarabhai: I have 10 dogs.
[00:20:25] Mia Tate: what?
[00:20:27] Mallika Sarabhai: I have 10 dogs. The oldest is a 19. Yeah. So that keeps me busy. And, and
[00:20:36] Mia Tate: Wait. No. Tell me. I wanna hear about these 10 dogs.
[00:20:40] Mallika Sarabhai: so my oldest is a 19-year-old and your producer saw him. He's, he's lying here. Um, he is a part Labrador and part River, river dog. then I have Beagle, I have Doba girl. I have a German Shepherd who we thought should be mated and who I was told would have two pups and came up with six. So we have seven German shepherds. Um, the pups are now this size, um, and have names like Apollo and Athena and four. um, I have these series of names. So one series is classical Greek, one series is classical Roman, one series is the Mahata, and so on and so forth. So yes, I have 10 delightful dogs.
[00:21:35] Mia Tate: I love that. I love that you have every one of the puppies
[00:21:39] Mallika Sarabhai: I have one of the properties and I tell my 250 students. That is only if you miss a beat or miss a note, will you be bitten. Otherwise, you are safe.
[00:21:54] Mia Tate: speaking speaking of discipline.
[00:21:58] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes, talking on discipline,
[00:22:00] Mia Tate: Just Apollo, just right there. Oh, that's amazing. What is the connection? What is your connection to animals? Is it a, is it a grounding? Is it delight? Is it all of it? I just am interested in
[00:22:14] Mallika Sarabhai: uncritical,
[00:22:15] Mia Tate: to
[00:22:16] Mallika Sarabhai: uncritical, un grumpy, uh, love. You know, kids after the age of two can be very argumentative. Two is about the limit. Uh, then it gets us worse and worse. uh, spouses and partners can be the same. And all you want is a tight hug and somebody sort of whispering sweet nothings. And you get that from pets, honestly. Honestly, and I, you know, fight so many causes all the time. And I stand up against our government and I'm getting criticized and I get hate mail. to just come back to a room full of people looking you in the eyes and your oin levels are going sort of, it's just wonderful.
[00:23:08] Mia Tate: Yeah. How does it feel to take on your take on the government? I mean, that sentence that you just threw out. I get hate mail, I take on the government. I mean, that is part of your story that I was just like these years using movement and dance as activism. But you do so in a fearless way. What does it mean to, you? To take on these issues, gender inequality, you know, I mean the human rights violations, all that you're doing with your dance, with your movement, hate mail. What does all that feel like?
[00:23:51] Mallika Sarabhai: Sometimes,
[00:23:51] Mia Tate: I don't know that.
[00:23:52] Mallika Sarabhai: sometimes, uh, frightening, sometimes depressing. When I, when I first took on the government and blamed the chief minister of our state, which is like the governor of your states genocide against the Muslims, my children were very young and I wondered if. I was right in putting them and my mother at risk, because you're talking hooliganism, you're talking people coming and throwing bombs into your compound. You're not talking of the gentlemanly fight. talking of riots, you're talking of vigilantism. And it was terrifying. It was terrifying. A lot of my staff left, uh, those that stayed, have stayed. but then when that chief minister becomes the prime minister of the country, first of all, all finance drives up. Everybody's terrified have anything to do with you friends. Don't answer the phone. Um, yeah. So it's, and, and, but, but we've, we've survived. We've survived. Uh, and uh. hard. Every day is hard because every day is a different kind of inquiry from the government. Uh, sometimes it's a financial question.
[00:25:18] Mallika Sarabhai: Sometimes it's the IRA. Sometimes it's this, sometimes it's that. Sometimes it is having confirmed performances canceled at the last moment because the organizers get a call saying, uh, do you want to be raided for tax infringements tomorrow? And it's all possible when you have on your hands, in your hands and all the, all portions of we call democratic institutions under your thumb, anything is possible. And, uh, that's a reality one lives with. not a pleasant reality. It's not a, I don't care reality. It is a reality. It is a reality. And, uh, the most difficult, of course, is funding drying up completely and everybody being terrified to, to even put their name next to yours and, and friends calling and saying, Malika, we would love to support you, but you know, I have a textile mill with 50,000 workers, and if that shuts down, that's 50,000 families outta jobs. So I can't take the risk.
[00:26:34] Mia Tate: And yet.
[00:26:36] Mallika Sarabhai: And yet,
[00:26:37] Mia Tate: What pulls you to keep doing it?
[00:26:40] Mallika Sarabhai: listen, I'm one of the privileged 0.001% of this country. I'm educated, I'm articulate, I speak English. I can address the world. I see what is around me. I see, I see the struggle and the terror with which people live and I can't not speak. It's, it's, it, it just, I mean, I have to look at myself every morning in the mirror and say, you know, I didn't do anything to destroy somebody yesterday.
[00:27:16] Mallika Sarabhai: I didn't do anything to hurt them or to harm them. But I also have to say that I am speaking up for people who are voiceless. I will because I can and because I have the knowledge and because I have the comfort that I'm not looking for my next meal.
[00:27:34] Mia Tate: Mm.
[00:27:35] Mallika Sarabhai: I come from a family who for four generations on both sides of my family have fought for what is right. I know no other way of living. I.
[00:27:49] Mia Tate: That's beautiful. What have you seen, what do you feel like it means to be a woman in this day and age? There's a lot. You talk about feminine, and I have follow up questions, but just as a broad question, what what does it mean to you?
[00:28:16] Mallika Sarabhai: I wouldn't like to be a man. I am very proud and very happy being a woman, a woman of strength, and a woman of courage. I have never understood the English language usage you don't have the balls for it That is the man's weakest portion. don't have the balls and yet we are the stronger sex. why is it that we reduce ourselves to using metaphors like that? for me, being a woman also means fighting kind of usages in language, in visual imagery a daily basis. I come from the only civilization where we did not as a race come out of a bearded man. The first being my philosophy was half woman, half man, which is correct as far as DNA, is concerned that we have both the X and the Y chromosome.
[00:29:33] Mallika Sarabhai: So I actually come from a philosophy where when the men failed, they had to call upon the goddess to come and save the world. And that is why it is such a tragedy that women are treated as chattel to be crushed and completely destroyed and done away with a country where we, where we celebrate goddesses. So what is it like being a woman? What is it like being an Indian woman? What is it like trying to wake up my sisters both in my civilization and across the world to say that vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is the greatest strength that makes us humane beings. Aggression and anger are not what makes us humane beings.
[00:30:23] Mallika Sarabhai: They are the weaknesses. They are not the strengths, and yet the world has convinced us otherwise.
[00:30:30] Mia Tate: mm-hmm.
[00:30:31] Mallika Sarabhai: we as thinking women have to unravel that on a, constant basis with every conversation we have, every performance we do, every, every line we write.
[00:30:46] Mia Tate: Humane beings. That's beautiful. And it is so true. I call it the overstory, you know, this kind of construct is, it's, it's gotten skewed and it's, it's,
[00:30:56] Mallika Sarabhai: And of course the fact that we live, uh. On the internet today and the kind of pornography that has gone multiple times and the, uh, violence against women and the violence against weaker of society, it's, I mean, it's, it's multiplied with technology to such levels that one doesn't even know where to begin.
[00:31:22] Mallika Sarabhai: But one thing I have to tell you that about 10 years ago, I decided that I would respond to every hate mail I got. So I started responding to them and saying that, you know, we live in a democracy and I have listened to your opinion. I may not agree with that opinion, but don't you think you should give me the same possibility that you may not agree with mine, but why this hatred? Mia, believe me, 50% of those who wrote me hate mails wrote apologizing, saying, we are sorry. You're quite right. We hadn't thought of it that way. And that
[00:32:00] Mia Tate: Well, you took it out of conceptual
[00:32:03] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah. Into real.
[00:32:05] Mia Tate: them back and taking the time, giving them that respect. You made it.
[00:32:08] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah.
[00:32:08] Mia Tate: Personal, you, there's uh, something, you already just said the word, but with your work and with your book, um, there's a beautiful vulnerability that you allow. I think that's kind of, um, I think it's a superpower because it's also living authentically.
[00:32:27] Mia Tate: You know? I mean, you're going to speak your mind because you're living authentically, but I feel like when the people I love that are living authentically dare to be vulnerable.
[00:32:38] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah. So I don't understand this. I mean, I often burst into tears in front of an audience that I'm giving a keynote address to, but that's okay. I, I don't, I, I mean, you've read my book so you know that one of the things I'm saying is that I don't want to keep skeletons in my cupboard. I want to tell people this is an issue with me. This is a weakness, this is a problem, and I'm trying to deal with it. I don't want to hide it from you because today's society is all about wearing masks. All of us are forced to wear masks, and I don't want to live that way. If I'm vulnerable, I'm vulnerable. I'm saying I'm scared. Okay.
[00:33:23] Mia Tate: Yes. And isn't it beautiful and refreshing? When you find people that are doing that, I automatically connect with them. You know, it's such, such a confusion out there that you know, you have to put up this perfect construct when the reality is we're much more drawn to the humane beings out
[00:33:42] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes, I get, I mean, when I'm depressed, you were saying what it is, uh, that, that doesn't frighten me or whatever. I get the most astonishing from people. I'm sitting in an airport and somebody, I'm reading a book and somebody suddenly puts a hand on my knee and says, you know, you don't know me. I watched a performance 30 years ago. It was this performance and it completely changed the trajectory of my life. Uh, I get women saying. You have no idea who we are or Mensing. Thank you for having the courage to speak what you did because it makes us feel freer as men, that we don't have to hide behind the hassle you are a man, of thing. Uh, and that we can also show our vulnerability and it's not seen by our women as weakness
[00:34:34] Mia Tate: Yeah,
[00:34:36] Mallika Sarabhai: because men are
[00:34:37] Mia Tate: that is
[00:34:37] Mallika Sarabhai: even more than us.
[00:34:38] Mia Tate: Go ahead.
[00:34:39] Mallika Sarabhai: Men are caged even more than us. You know, we are okay having a sisterhood of people who will break down and cry. Men are not allowed that
[00:34:50] Mia Tate: Right. Do you feel, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. Though it's such a trying time, do you feel a shift starting to happen into kind of this more feminine balance? I think of the patriarch, feel like it's still holding, trying to hold up this structure that's outdated, but it's, but the arms are getting very shaky and the, the structure is starting to crumble and I really do feel. For the sake of humans that the balance comes back for women, of course. But for men, like you
[00:35:29] Mallika Sarabhai: You have the perfect example in the, in the election of Ani. I mean, that is
[00:35:35] Mia Tate: Yes.
[00:35:36] Mallika Sarabhai: a feminine movement. It's a movement that took everybody along. It's a movement that said, yes, I am this, this, and this. But so what? And I think, I mean, I just jumped sky high when that happened because it's such a ray of hope for us sitting here. Perhaps that'll happen here. Perhaps. Perhaps we will get to that critical mass of people doing amazing things, that we will get to that critical mass, that it will allow for that shift. I think the patriarchy and the fascism here is very, very strong still. But I see younger people, people giving up jobs because they want to go and do something that makes a difference, and that's what keeps, keeps us going as artists, but also as human beings.
[00:36:27] Mia Tate: Yes. And that questioning, uh, sounds like you've always had. I do see, like with my children or that generation, they are questioning the status quo. The, I like to call it the hamster
[00:36:40] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. The hamster wheel is right. Yes. At least today we have been able, I think my generation in many ways, but that at least we have been able to pass on. The world has come to a place where identity can be fluid without it being clamped down. people might be going the woke culture the other way.
[00:37:07] Mallika Sarabhai: But I think perhaps a pendulum needs to swing that way before it comes to some semblance of, of, uh, of balance. I think that the very fact that when I went to management school here, outta 200 students, there were two of us who opted outta the corporate life and we knew very clearly that we were not going to go into the corporate life. there is 20% who are saying, we want to do something different. We want to start an alternate, I don't know, healthcare system. We want to start alternate schools. We want to see how a village in India can be transformed into becoming a place of strength rather than poverty. You know? So, so that's the hope. And it's happening everywhere. Not only here.
[00:37:55] Mia Tate: Yeah. what I feel too. A lot of the guests I get on this show are, um, reimagining. You know, we say we find stories of people who use dance to, heal, survive, reimagine, and thrive. And the people no matter how varied the stories are, there's a thread of the kind of. people who are drawn to dance or movement in general, like this kind of what I call primal heartbeat. And um, they are looking outside the box
[00:38:27] Mallika Sarabhai: I see. I think definition of box is also changing.
[00:38:33] Mallika Sarabhai: The
[00:38:33] Mallika Sarabhai: definition of box is changing, the definition of success is changing. What is the box? Are we in being unbox, boxing ourselves into another box? You know, I mean, these are all questions that are coming up and that's what's exciting that they're coming up.
[00:38:54] Mia Tate: You have 250 students?
[00:38:56] Mallika Sarabhai: In
[00:38:57] Mia Tate: Is that
[00:38:57] Mallika Sarabhai: the academy.
[00:39:00] Mia Tate: at the
[00:39:00] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah. What
[00:39:04] Mia Tate: That's amazing.
[00:39:05] Mallika Sarabhai: I'm trying to do is not make dancers. I'm not interested in creating people into better dancers or stars. I want to make them into better human beings able to cope. Able to understand, able to have values. for me, dance is a way of getting them to focus. They're with me for seven years, the age of seven till they were 14 or 15, some till they're 18 or 19. through them, not only am I talking to them, and my teachers are wonderful because they have the same set of values to give to the children. We talk about menstruation and we talk about I mean, why was this God playing this game? What does it mean to us today? And questioning is not allowed in the kind of fanatical, um, religiosity that our government has brought into the country.
[00:39:59] Mallika Sarabhai: We are becoming a, uh, we are becoming a a, a, a, a religious state, which is not at all what India is. uh, so questioning is not allowed. History books are being changed. Uh, large sections of our history is being completely erased. here is an opportunity not only to get the child to think for herself, but to get the parents' influence and then perhaps a little larger community and a little larger community. So when the parents come, uh, for instance, to watch the annual event and the annual event, um, is classical dance was, but based on the lives of independent women who live today. So one maybe is a lawyer in the Supreme Court and we are dancing her life. Uh. The little girls are questioning about superstition, about blind belief, about rituals, which no longer have a meaning.
[00:40:59] Mia Tate: You have a moment when you see in these young people, it click
[00:41:03] Mallika Sarabhai: Oh, very much so. Very much so.
[00:41:09] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:41:09] Mia Tate: that has to feel good.
[00:41:11] Mallika Sarabhai: That feels wonderful. It feels wonderful.
[00:41:16] Mia Tate: I feel like with children, they have it. They have all the, you know. I think it's wrong that to say, you know, children don't know yet 'cause they haven't grown one in reality, I think they know and then they learn the cultural
[00:41:33] Mallika Sarabhai: Taboos. Taboos. We fought them so early and with this whole Instagram thing that are, are, working, parents who to keep their child quiet, hand them a phone to look at Instagram and cartoons and violent things young as 1-year-old before they can even sit up properly. They're glued to their phones, looking at vial things, which the parents don't realize are vial,
[00:42:04] Mallika Sarabhai: Maybe they're, they're so brainwashed by our society and the cultural norms and rules and, and it's still very much, India is still very much a society where the larger community matters. The, the cast unfortunately matters where, what somebody from the society, an elder from their own community says matters. So it's still, it's still, um, in that sense a traditional society, but with all the values having broken down. So we live on these two very different levels. One is what we do on Instagram, has nothing to do with our reality. And the other is the pretense that we have in our community, in our family of what we really are.
[00:43:01] Mia Tate: And they're that opposite.
[00:43:03] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah. And that's the kind of thing we try and talk to our students because if they can express through dance little bit of the confusion that goes on in growing up, then we are, uh, them power.
[00:43:23] Mia Tate:
[00:43:23] Mallika Sarabhai: And you know, Indian classical dance is such an incredibly sophisticated language. When I'm traveling in your country and I go into schools to give lecture demonstrations, I always ask the students, because most of the guys sit at the back saying, you know, we are not interested in this. Um, and to get them engaged, I. Ask them always to come and tell me a story. I said, it can be what you had for breakfast. It can be what happened in your football thing, and I will dance it for you. And I have had things told to me from Superman to, to you name it, uh, to to to uh, to, to, to the latest comic books and, the fact that I can dance it as they say sentence after sentence. By the end of two hours, I have won them over completely because they were thinking this is some archaic language that can't today's thoughts. And that's not true. limitation is a limitation that a performer sets on herself or himself. my paraia, my classical dance, can talk to you about anything.
[00:44:36] Mia Tate: Do you consider yourself a storyteller?
[00:44:39] Mallika Sarabhai: I consider myself a communicator. I suppose storytelling is part of that.
[00:44:45] Mia Tate: Yeah. What is um, that's, that's amazing. To put, to put dance right in front of them as a form of communication, um, is profound. What is the greatest of the greatest pieces of advice you were ever given?
[00:45:09] Mallika Sarabhai: You know, I am the kind of person who hates questions like, what is the
[00:45:16] Mia Tate: I.
[00:45:16] Mallika Sarabhai: ideal? What is your favorite? What is the greatest? Because what I think just now talking to you might come to me as the greatest piece of advice might not be something I think of tomorrow morning. Today. I will say to you. Be so naked that nobody can make you naked.
[00:45:42] Mia Tate: Oh, I know you don't like those questions, but I'm sure glad I asked it. That's, that is amazing. I love that. Another thing I love about you is your humor. What role does humor play in your, in your life, in your art?
[00:46:05] Mallika Sarabhai: Huge. A huge role. role because.
[00:46:08] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:46:10] Mallika Sarabhai: With humor and a sort of tongue in cheek approach, one can get so much across. I also think that laughter is such an amazing medicine. really have a laughter that, um, I have a laughter that, uh, brings the house down. I mean, literally, I laugh so loudly, uh, and I feel very sorry for people who can't laugh or I come from my mother's side of the family were very British and had a very British sense of humor.
[00:46:42] Mallika Sarabhai: Very underplayed, but hilarious. And I think I have a love for that kind of humor rather than for buffoonery. I, I think intelligent humor is, is what I, I really enjoy and what I try to bring you to my work.
[00:47:00] Mia Tate: Hmm. Yes. I think humor does allow us to go deeper, right? I've always
[00:47:06] Mallika Sarabhai: Yeah.
[00:47:06] Mia Tate: a storyteller, that it can be what makes people safe to go deeper.
[00:47:12] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes. And it can, it can take the sting out of something that could otherwise be offensive.
[00:47:19] Mia Tate: Yeah. And it is divine for me. I mean like that laughing when you get to that point with
[00:47:26] Mallika Sarabhai: It's,
[00:47:27] Mia Tate: you are a, my favorite people are a throw your head back kind of laughing person
[00:47:32] Mallika Sarabhai: and sometimes it's, it's very funny because sometimes sometime my mother and I at a very serious dinner party would get the giggles and I would be trying to stop laughing and I would have tears rolling down my face and somebody would be kicking me under the table to ask me to stop. And I would get even more hysterically laughing.
[00:47:51] Mia Tate: Oh yeah,
[00:47:52] Mallika Sarabhai: I know those, this sort of snot coming down your nose and tears rolling down, just can't stop.
[00:47:59] Mia Tate: it's ecstasy though. I had the same thing with my mom and she was, she would hoot, you know, she was a hooter when she would laugh, you know, it was just like, oh, and I remember moments of just that silent bouncing of your body as
[00:48:14] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes,
[00:48:14] Mia Tate: know, just in that shared moment together. I love laughter. Um, what role has heartbreak and any, you know, emotional abuse or wounds played in your creating
[00:48:39] Mallika Sarabhai: I think more than in my creating, perhaps in my interpreting
[00:48:44] Mia Tate: ah.
[00:48:46] Mallika Sarabhai: when I'm acting or dancing in the way that I'm interpreting an emotion, it has played a huge, huge role. Huge. And I've had plenty of pain and plenty of heartbreak and plenty of.
[00:48:59] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:49:00] Mallika Sarabhai: of one kind of the other. But it deepens my, it deepens my ability to communicate emotion to an audience because it's real and I can, it's like leaving it so raw that you can pick at it the middle of a performance without a before or after. is no first gear and fourth gear. You're in drive mode, but that also means that you leave that wound draw. And as an artist, it helps me tremendously.
[00:49:37] Mia Tate: Yeah, and as a person being able to go to those or you know, harder places, I think is the balance of being able to enjoy the light much more as well. Would you agree?
[00:49:54] Mallika Sarabhai: of course. Of course. I was, I was talking to a friend earlier, a couple of hours before our chat I was saying to them that my, I think my greatest ability the ability to forget bitterness and that when they say to me, know, this person treated you like hell two years ago, don't you remember? I say, no, I don't remember. And I think that is possibly the ability that can. Make me forever optimistic about the world and about human beings.
[00:50:41] Mia Tate: Yes, I share that, uh, ime, you know, it doesn't serve us, right. I
[00:50:47] Mallika Sarabhai: I agree.
[00:50:47] Mia Tate: I, I, uh, it doesn't serve us, but I also just technically it just goes away, you
[00:50:53] Mallika Sarabhai: Carrying that albatross is just such a waste of life.
[00:50:58] Mia Tate: Right. What is that story? Oh, I don't know it, but, uh, when the monk comes to
[00:51:07] Mallika Sarabhai: That's
[00:51:07] Mia Tate: a puddle of water
[00:51:09] Mallika Sarabhai: That's right.
[00:51:10] Mia Tate: right now, I just wish I had it word for word, but we
[00:51:12] Mallika Sarabhai: Yes,
[00:51:13] Mia Tate: carrying the
[00:51:14] Mallika Sarabhai: that's right.
[00:51:16] Mia Tate: then the other monk says, what
[00:51:19] Mallika Sarabhai: You know, why don't
[00:51:20] Mia Tate: I can't believe you carried
[00:51:21] Mallika Sarabhai: you walk?
[00:51:23] Mia Tate: Yeah. And he goes, I put her down back there.
[00:51:26] Mia Tate: It seems you're still carrying her and it's true. It doesn't serve
[00:51:30] Mallika Sarabhai: No, not, does it serve anybody
[00:51:34] Mia Tate: Yeah.
[00:51:37] Mia Tate: If we, if we rise up from this moment, from us up to like a bird's eye view, what is a universal truth for you?
[00:51:55] Mallika Sarabhai: that we all have light in us. We let it be eclipsed, we all have it in us, that happiness is really about finding that light. Not about how much I achieve, but about being able to give that light to somebody. And that's really all that life is about.
[00:52:26] Mia Tate: Thank you for sharing that light with me. I really, I have so loved talking to you.
[00:52:33] Mallika Sarabhai: Thank you.
[00:52:35] Mia Tate: It's such an honor.
[00:52:37] Mallika Sarabhai: dance is oxygen. For me, growing up, the one thought I held with absolute clarity was that I did not want to be a dancer. I had watched Amma work, relentlessly whether she was ill or exhausted, was convinced I could never shoulder that kind of discipline. And yet I kept studying, kept moving, kept finding myself happiest under the lights of a stage. At 22, I came. epiphany that overturned everything I had resisted body needed The dance. Dance is both fulfillment and release. place where I return to myself when I'm not dancing a restlessness, bills quiet at first, and then unmistakable. As I have grown older, and especially after COVID, when I no longer had a full-time company of dancers around me, I slipped into long stretches of not dancing at all. Each time I begin again, I realize how much I have drifted from my truest self. Dancing brings me home.