Little did dancer and researcher Ulka Mayur realise that a research paper at a literature conference would one day become a dance theatre piece that explores themes of desire. Her chosen method at the time was storytelling and her audience made up of academia. "While working with characters from the epics I realised that there was a running theme of desire and constant sexual tension we hadn't delved into," says Mayur.

It's then that she took to research and spent the next two months penning down the script for Ballad of Desires that premiers this weekend. "I chose dance theatre as a medium because it was a script that demanded the evocative," she explains. The production uses two kinds of narratives — four stories from the epics that comprise the larger part of the show and a smaller part that speaks of the concepts of desire and throws up complex questions in a light-hearted manner. The chosen stories are of Ahalya from Ramayana, Ruchi and Renuka from Mahabharata and Hirapath from the Bheel Bharat, a tribal version of the Mahabharata.