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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline MARCH 03, 2023 | The Indian Eye 18

Performing Arts Houston Presents

Ragamala Dance Company

Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim by Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna

Ramaswamy presented on March 10

OUR BUREAU
Houston, TX

agamala Dance Company’s
30th season continues with
RFires of Varanasi, presented
March 10, 2023, at 7:30pm at Per-
forming Arts Houston, Cullen The-
ater, Wortham Center, Houston,
Rooted in the expansive South
Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam,
Ragamala Dance Company manifests
a kindred relationship between the
ancient and the contemporary. In this
evening-length performance, eleven
dancers conjure a realm where time
is suspended and humans merge with
the divine. Award-winning creators
Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ra-
maswamy imagine a metaphorical
crossing place that enters a ritual-
istic world of immortality, evoking
the birth-death-rebirth continuum in
Hindu thought to honor immigrant
experiences of life and death in the
diaspora.
Fires of Varanasi evokes the
spiritually electric city, described by
mother and daughter in conversation and large-scale theatrical works for
with essayist Pico Iyer as a metaphor the stage, Ranee and Aparna em-
for the interconnectedness of life and power the South Asian American
death. The work features an origi- experience. By engaging the dynam-
nal, recorded score and the lighting ic tension between ancestral wisdom
designs of French scenic and lighting and creative freedom, they reveal the
designer Willy Cessa. kindred relationship between ancient
Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the
Eternal Pilgrim was commissioned by and contemporary that is urgently
needed in today’s world.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Featuring Aparna Ramaswamy
Performing Arts; co-commissioned as Principal Dancer, Ragamala has
by the Harris Theater for Music and been commissioned and presented
Dance; co-commissioned by and de- extensively throughout the U.S., In-
veloped in part at the Hopkins Cen- dia, and abroad, highlighted by the
ter for the Arts at Dartmouth College Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.),
and The Younes and Soraya Nazari- Joyce Theater (New York), Lincoln
an Center for the Performing Arts, Center (New York), Jacob’s Pillow
Cal State Northridge and Northrop, Dance Festival (MA), Walker Art
University of Minnesota; with addi- The Meany Center for the Per- and Aparna Ramaswamy. Over the Center (Minneapolis), American
tional commissioning support from forming Arts Dance Series is gener- last four decades, Ranee and Apar- Dance Festival (Durham, NC), The
Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts ously underwritten by Delaney and na’s practice in the South Indian Soraya (Southern California), Mu-
Center at Auburn University; Meany Justin Dechant and Ira and Courtney dance form of Bharatanatyam has seum of Contemporary Art Chicago,
Center for the Performing Arts at the Gerlich in honor of Katharyn Alvord shifted the trajectory of culturally International Festival of Arts & Ideas
University of Washington; American Gerlich. rooted performing arts in the United (New Haven, CT), Cal Performanc-
Dance Festival; and The Joyce The- Ragamala Dance Company is States to create an exemplary compa- es (Berkeley), Arts Center at NYU
ater Foundation’s Stephen and Cathy the vision of award-winning mother/ ny within the American dance land-
Weinroth Fund for New Work. daughter artists Ranee Ramaswamy scape. Through both intimate solos Continued on next page... >>

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