Aditi Mangaldas is a leading dancer and choreographer of which dance form?

Explanation

Aditi Mangaldas is one of the leading Kathak dancers and choreographers of India. She is known for creating contemporary works that are rooted in the vocabulary of Kathak but explore new themes and new ways of using movement and space.

Aditi Mangaldas was born in Ahmedabad and began learning Kathak from Kumudini Lakhia at Kadamb, the famous Kathak centre in Ahmedabad. She later trained under Pandit Birju Maharaj in Delhi and became one of the leading soloists of his dance company. In the 1990s, she founded the Drishtikon Dance Foundation in Delhi, through which she creates and presents her own choreography with her dance company. Her works, such as "Within", "Timeless", "Inter-rupted" and "Uncharted Seas", deal with themes such as life, death, memory, identity and the human condition, and they have been performed at major international festivals. She is known for her strong, expressive style and her ability to combine the precision of classical Kathak with a modern sensibility. In 2013, she declined the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in the creative and experimental dance category, saying that her work was rooted in Kathak and should be recognised as such.

Kathak is the classical dance of North India, known for its footwork (tatkar), spins (chakkars) and storytelling (gat bhaav). It has four main gharanas: Lucknow, Jaipur, Banaras and Raigarh. Many modern Kathak dancers, such as Aditi Mangaldas, Daksha Sheth and Shovana Narayan, have used Kathak to create new contemporary works, following the example of Kumudini Lakhia.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Bharatanatyam is associated with dancers such as Rukmini Devi Arundale and Alarmel Valli.
• ✗Odissi is associated with dancers such as Kelucharan Mohapatra and Sonal Mansingh.
• ✗Kuchipudi is associated with dancers such as Vempati Chinna Satyam and Shobha Naidu.