Ragamala: Where Indian art gets a new meaning

As Ranee Ramaswamy enters her 26th year as a dance teacher in Minneapolis, she can look back to many things she has achieved in the Midwestern state. "Who would have thought that something that started in a small way here years ago has blossomed into a dance studio and school," she mused recently. She had returned from Bali where her students including daughters Aparna and Ashwini trained at her Ragamala Music and Dance Theater performed in the dance drama Sethu (Bridge). It incorporated traditional South Indian and Balinese dance elements.

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sethu combines Bharat Natyam dance and Kecak, the powerful vocal tradition of Bali, to create a new presentation of the epic Ramayana.

When it was first performed in Minneapolis in 2004, it drew over 6,000 people for its two shows.

The recent performance in two Balinese cities had a great reception too, said Ramaswamy. "We lived up to the title, linking Indian and Balinese traditions."

"Performances like ours were sending signals to post 9/11 America that people from different parts of the world were willing to work in harmony," Ramaswamy said.

Ramaswamy, who began to perform and teach at the request of the tiny Indian community in Minneapolis 26 years ago, has said in many interviews that she found a liberating experience in the city.

'I came to this country for freedom -- not religious, but personal,' she said in an interview recently with Bush Fellows News. 'One source is the freedom to dance. I grew up in an orthodox Brahmin community, which saw dance as something appropriate for little girls, but certainly not for grown women.'

She was too playful in the joint family home in Chennai where even humming was frowned upon. 'It wasn't a place for me at all,' she added. 'When my husband had a chance to come to this country, I encouraged him. I hoped for some breathing room, to live unclouded by disapproval. It was here that I reclaimed my interest in dance.'

'Some people think that we are only into fusion dancing,' she continued. 'In fact, we also teach the purest Bharat Natyam which I learned from the master teacher Alarmel Valli. Aparna, too, has been trained by her.'

Though Valli too calls Chennai her home, Ranee and she met for the first time in Minnesota. It was a life-transforming experience for Ramaswamy. "Life is never short of surprises," she says. "I had to come here to America to meet my future teacher, Alarmel Valli. It was a rare experience to see her dance. I have always believed since then that Valli embodies a technique of unparalleled clarity, line, and expressiveness. Until I saw her dance, I didn't even know what dance could be."

Talking about dance drama creations, she said, speaking about Aparna and her own self:   "Our bodies and souls are soaked with the tradition -- we can never get away from it even if we wanted to."

But fusion dancing has its own place. "Some think that innovation dilutes traditional art forms. I don't see it that way," she explained. "I present Indian dance in various ways to make it more accessible to non-Indian audiences. This creates a bridge back to tradition. Once audiences have a little taste of this, they are more able to appreciate the artistry of a purist like Valli."

The Ramaswamys have received numerous awards including 13 McKnight Foundation fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Ragamala is also active in various outreach programs in Minneapolis, getting the larger community appreciate Indian culture. "We are not just a dance school, and here is a distinction should be made between us and others who run dance schools," Ramaswamy said referring to Ragamala founded in 1992. "Ours is a dance and music company. And we have been using Bharat Natyam as the springboard for innovative choreography right from the beginning."    

While her younger daughter Ashwini, who is a publicist with Penguin in New York, joins her occasionally in performance, Aparna decided to remain full-time with the company after receiving a bachelor's degree. She is also the co-artistic director of Ragamala. "She knows that dance is her life's work," her mother said.  The daughter added: "I am getting much more excitement and fulfillment than I can get in a high paying job. And the challenges keep coming."

Among the big challenges the mother and daughter have taken up is collaborating with artists from different backgrounds. It started nearly 15 ago when Ranee Ramaswamy read Mirabai's Ecstatic Poems translated by the distinguished poet Robert Bly.

Raagmala will be taking one of its most popular shows From Temple to Theater to many states, including Delaware, Ohio and Vermont.