MinnPost - Ragamala’s ambitious 25th year

Ragamala’s ambitious 25th year
Pamela Espeland, MinnPost
May 19, 2017
Original Article

In 1978, Ranee Ramaswamy emigrated from Chandanagore, India, to Burnsville, Minnesota, with her then husband, Raj, and their 3-year-old daughter, Aparna. Last night at the A-Mill Artist Lofts, Ranee, Aparna and Aparna’s sister, Ashwini, announced their plans for the 25th year of Ragamala Dance Company.

Founded in 1992 as Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, the company – which practices a complex, rigorous, highly structured dance language called Bharatanatyam, a South Indian form that dates back 2,000 years – has made a home in Minneapolis, of all places. From here, it has become nationally and internationally known for bringing Bharatanatyam forward to today, staying true to its roots and traditions while making it meaningful to modern audiences.

Ragamala’s history of imaginative and sometimes daring collaborations includes works with poets, painters, contemporary composers and jazz musicians. Thinking big and planning ahead, this surprisingly small company – five dancers, a tiny staff – is about to have its busiest, most expansive year ever.

A creative residency in June at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy will be followed in July by a student performance in St. Paul and a party at the Cedar with New York-based “Basement Bhangra” DJ Rekha. From August through December, the company will perform somewhere every month: in Scotland, Massachusetts, California, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (Detroit Lakes, Northfield, Worthington). They will draw from their extensive repertory of original works; “Nocturne,” “Sacred Earth,” “They Rose at Dawn” and “Written in Water” are all on the schedule.

After taking “Written in Water” to Abu Dhabi, they’ll return to Minneapolis for their 25th Anniversary gala and the world premiere of a new work, “Body, the Shrine,” described as “an exploration of the mythography of the intimate and the infinite.”

This fall, Ragamala will host its third annual “Ode to Navarathri” community event, a festival of art sharing. Other events include a September performance and artist talk by master dancer, choreographer and company guru Alarmél Valli, a screening of a film about Valli and a screening of a new documentary about Ragamala.

Minneapolis dates for your calendar: Sept. 15-16, Alarmél Valli at the Cowles. April 26-28, 2018: “Body, the Shrine,” also at the Cowles.