Imagine a village that has never seen water. Not a river, not rain. Never.
And then a child arrives. A child who belongs to no one.
The village has to choose: keep him, or give him away. A queen who has to make that call. A wind that carries every plea nobody answers. And somewhere out there, a mother who is a river.
We’re not going to tell you what they choose. That’s why you come.
Where two rivers meet.
SANGAM takes its name from the place where two rivers meet.
Set in a village of women shaped by ritual, rhythm and inheritance, in a land that has never held water, SANGAM gives voice to a child who arrives belonging to no one, and to the community that must decide what to do with him.
Danced in Indian folk, Bollywood and semi-classical forms, the work holds drought against abundance, the human against the divine, and what a village keeps against what it is willing to give away.
It asks what a community owes to the one it does not recognise.
Five who carry it
Meet the characters.
01
Rani KanōThe Queen
One hidden child unsettles the world she controls.
Played by Svetlana Bubnova
02
ManuThe Hidden Boy
Raised by sun, moon and forest, he watches a world he longs to enter.
Played by Swapnil Dagliya
03
Prabha & ChaayaThe Sun & The Moon
Two guardians who shelter without possessing, always orbiting the same heart.
Played by Shreya Vaidya & Laurien De Ridder
04
VayuThe Messenger
The wind belongs to no village. It carries every unanswered plea.
Played by Narcisse Merlier
05
UmaThe River Goddess · The Mother
Before the river had a name, it began in a mother’s heart.
Played by Srimahavalli Thiyagarajan
Before you come
Everything you need to know.
Saturday 7 November 202619:30
Sunday 8 November 202615:00
Shoonya TheatreShoonya Dance Centre, Stapelplein 41, 9000 Ghent
Running time70 minutes plus a 20-minute interval
Tickets€20
Ages8 and up
Getting there10-minute walk from Gent-Dampoort station · paid street parking nearby
The barOpens 30 minutes before each performance — come early, have a drink, find your seat
both performances start sharp.
Tickets are sold by Shoonya Dance Centre. “Book tickets” opens Shoonya’s ticket form: choose Buy tickets for a Performance.
ABC company · GIDF Gala 2023 · PC Jan Vens
Danced by the company.
SANGAM is danced by ABC a bollywood company, the Belgian Indian dance company founded and led by Swapnil Dagliya — along with Bollyfolk, Bollywood and Bhangra students at Shoonya Dance Centre.
Swapnil Dagliya
Narcisse Merlier
Sara Van Holm
Svetlana Bubnova
Chiara Bisinelli
Kaushika Kumar
Laurien De Ridder
Khushboo Agarwal
Shreya Vaidya
Roshni Tela
Haike Bourgeois
Srimahavalli Thiyagarajan
Why I made it
“Every dancer on that stage came to Indian dance from somewhere else. Different countries, different mother tongues, different reasons for walking into a studio in Ghent. None of them grew up with this. All of them chose it.
So a story about what a village does with someone who doesn’t fit, I had to make it with them. They are the village. They were also, once, the stranger.”
Swapnil Dagliya
Presented by
An ABC a bollywood company production at Shoonya Dance Centre — ABC's home.
Concept, direction & choreography
Swapnil Dagliya, in collaboration with the ABC dancers
Production
Wim Boussery & Swapnil Dagliya
Lighting
Leander Leeman
Costumes
ABC a bollywood company
7 & 8 November 2026 · Ghent
Two worlds, one evening.
Seventy minutes of Indian folk, Bollywood and semi-classical dance, plus a 20-minute interval, at Shoonya Theatre. Tickets €20. Bring someone who has never seen Indian dance.
