Ragamala Dance Company
Song of the Jasmine
Ranee Ramaswamy, Aparna Ramaswamy,
and Rudresh Mahanthappa, creators

“You don’t generally go to a performance of Bharatanatyam, the classical South Indian dance style, expecting to want to get up and dance. The form inspires a more removed kind of reverence … ,” observes a New York Times reviewer. “But … Ragamala Dance, a Bharatanatyam company from Minneapolis, upended that expectation with the New York premiere of Song of the Jasmine, a soulful, imaginative, and rhythmically contagious collaboration with the superb jazz composer and alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa.” Born in 1992 from the creative vision of mother and daughter Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy—co-artistic directors, choreographers, and principal dancers—Ragamala investigates the ancient origins and contemporary possibilities of Indian classical dance. The Ramaswamys, both born in India, embrace the philosophy, spirituality, myth, and mysticism of their heritage to create not works but worlds—visceral, universal experiences that use Indian art forms to express their contemporary point of view. Song of the Jasmine, which features the Ramaswamys and three other dancers, takes its inspiration from “Sacred Sayings of the Goddess,” a poem by the female mystic Andal. While no words are spoken or sung during the evening-length performance, the poem’s notions of the sacred and the sensual are explored in dance set to music played onstage by Mahanthappa and four other musicians on guitar, Indian flute, percussion, and violin.