If space is shaped by form and time, then the body plays an active role in determining what it inhabits by the sheer act of inhabitance. In her work as a performer, choreographer, writer, publisher, and social strategist, Mallika Sarabhai examines this relationship between movement and environment, often fusing the classical and the contemporary to forge new forms that redefine space by time and suggest new possibilities for the collective’s inhabitation of the present.

One such piece is Past Forward, a contemporary Bharatanatyam performance serving as the finale of Leap!: Pickle Factory Season 4. As a precursor to Pickle Factory’s Kolkata presentation of this original choreography, Mallika Sarabhai sits down with Sumona Chakrabory, Founder Director of Hamdatsi and Deputy Director of Delhi Art Gallery, and Madeleine St. John, Director of TRI and Dance Movement Therapy + Expressive Arts practitioner, to discuss what we can learn from the female body and properties of femininity about choreographing change within space and time to develop a more balanced body politic.