Experience the dance, music, and culture of India with Ragamala Dance Company, and enrich multiple areas of your curriculum—dance, music, world cultures, diversity—with this nationally renowned ensemble!
Ragamala Dance Company is driven by the artistic vision of mother-daughters Ranee Ramaswamy, Aparna Ramaswamy, and Ashwini Ramaswamy. By creating original, multi-disciplinary dance works rooted in the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, engaging the community, and educating the next generation, Ragamala epitomizes intercultural and immigrant narratives that evoke a shared sense of humanity.
Founded by Ranee in 1992, Ragamala’s work has been presented throughout Minnesota, the U.S., India, and abroad, highlighted by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Lincoln Center in New York, Walker Art Center and Northrop in Minneapolis, the Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi in the UAE, the Korzo Festival in The Hague, Netherlands, and the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai, India, among others.
The origins of Ragamala’s educational and community engagement practice go back to Ranee’s earliest days as a young immigrant in Minnesota in the 1980s. The Indian community—at the time only 100 families—looked to her to provide arts education for youth as a means to uphold Indian identity and mitigate the ambiguities of straddling two cultures. As a teaching artist, she traveled throughout the state introducing K-12 students to her culture, her art form, and her experience. Since that time, education and outreach have remained a fundamental core of Ragamala’s mission.
As creative artists and culture bearers, Ragamala’s art is centered around the power of ancestral wisdom to extend tradition and expand creativity, reflecting on immigrant experiences and global citizenry.
More About the Artist
Ranee is the 2014 recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. She has also earned 14 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography and Interdisciplinary Art and a Bush Fellowship for Choreography. Ranee currently serves on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Obama.
Learn more about Ragamala Dance Company’s Ashwini Ramaswamy in March 2018’s Artist Spotlight Interview.
Program Offerings
Residency
Dance, Visual Arts, and Culture of South India
In this residency, Ragamala artists expand upon and delve more deeply into the topics and art forms offered in the Bharatanatyam dance and Kolam rice flour art workshops and their techniques, histories, cultural roots in southern India, and ongoing practice in India and the diaspora.
Sacred Geography
Conceived by Ragamala’s Artistic Directors, Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy, Sacred Geography is a visual art installation created together by a community. Using the South Indian folk art tradition of kolam (geometric floor drawings), Sacred Geography creates a metaphorical pilgrimage and intentional act of collective reflection.
Ragamala artists introduce participants to the tradition of kolam, as taught to Ranee by her grandmother in India, and teach them multiple designs—first using paper and pencil, and later by pinching rice flour through their fingers onto the ground. Each participant will choose one of these designs to add to the installation, ultimately revealing a large-scale grid in which intricate curved lines flow around a precisely balanced array of dots.
Through this activity, Ragamala introduces participants to the philosophies and traditions that are the basis of kolam, and how it reflects Ranee and Aparna’s unique perspective as first-generation immigrant artists. Ragamala envisions Sacred Geography as an act of community connection, and encourages participants to bring themselves and their own intentions to the installation.
Performance
Ragamala Dance Company
RAGAMALA DANCE COMPANY
Led by a Ragamala company member, this presentation introduces participants to Bharatanatyam, providing an overview of the technique, evolution, and development of this South Indian classical dance form and how Ragamala’s Artistic Directors, Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy, use it to express their own contemporary points of view. Examining issues of immigration, cultural hybridity, and the dynamic tension between history and the current moment, Ragamala sparks discussion about the place of culturally rooted art forms in the 21st century.
Without getting up from their seats, participants have the opportunity to try out some of the intricate hand gestures of Bharatanatyam, and learn how to tell silent stories with their hands. The program ends with a short Q&A.
Tailored to the age, experience, and interests of the participants, this beautiful, educational, and fun-filled session provides a firsthand experience of Indian arts and culture.
Workshops
Bharatanatyam: Classical Dance of South India
Bharatanatyam is a vibrant, dynamic, and living dance form that originated in southern India. Taught a Ragamala company member, this participatory workshop introduces participants to Ragamala’s unique lineage of Bharatanatyam, providing an overview of the rhythmic, gestural, and expressive vocabularies that are the underpinnings of the form.
Note: Must be paired with a performance or part of workshop series.
Kolam: Visual Arts of South India
Each day before sunrise, in southeastern India, millions of women create Kolams—intricate designs made of rice flour on the ground in front of the main entrances to their homes. This daily ritual creates a sacred space and becomes a link between the intimate home and the vastness of the outside world.
Ragamala artists introduce participants to the history and background of Kolam and its philosophy of interconnectedness between humanity and nature. Participants learn to draw several Kolam designs on paper, and then create them with rice flour on the floor to experience the traditional method.
Note: Must be paired with a performance or part of workshop series.
“A heartfelt THANKS for the amazing Ragamala Dance performance my students were able to experience this spring. The lead dancer connected with the students in a warm, inviting manner, as she gave just the right amount of explanation while sparking curiosity and wonder. My students (grades K-5) were highly engaged and asked if we could please have the performers back again! The dancing and music were exquisite, with plenty of opportunity for student involvement through the intriguing hand gestures. All three of the dancers communicated with kindness and humor during the Q-A portion. The Ragamala performance was definitely a highlight of the students’ musical learning this year.
–Teacher, Shannon Park Elementary
“What an incredible performance! Patrons of all ages were immediately drawn to the dancers and music. The artists did a wonderful job balancing their performance with information about the history of Bharatanatyam dance.”
–Staff Member, Washington County Library
“I loved the music being made by the dance and how it coordinated with the music. I really enjoyed it and it kept me engaged the entire time. The technique and precision was so awesome to watch.”
–Student, Edison High School
