Rudyard Kipling might have had to eat his words, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky might himself be surprised. After all, both Victorian icons lived at a time that firmly believed that “East is East/and West is West/ and never the twain shall meet”. Not if Sharmila Mukherjee has something to say about it. The founder of Sanjali Centre for Odissi Dance in Bengaluru will open her first performance of Hansika, in the city on Saturday. The adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s famed ballet production, Swan Lake, transforms the very European tale into an Indian fable told through Odissi.

Sharmila Mukherjee performs a scene from the ballet