DURHAM, NC: American Dance Festival presents Ragamala Dance Company: "Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim"
Company:
Ragamala Dance Company
Ragamala Dance Company's Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim by Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy will be presented on July 6 & 7, 2022 at 7:30pm at the American Dance Festival, Reynolds Industries Theatre at Duke, Durham, NC. Tickets start at $25 and are available online.
"[The] universal and visual atmosphere is intoxicating, no matter your background...a wholly magnificent piece of live art." – The Chicago Tribune
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 Ramaswamy imagine a metaphorical crossing place that enters into a ritualistic 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 with essayist Pico Iyer as a metaphor for the interconnectedness of life and death. The work features an original, recorded score and the lighting designs of French scenic and lightning designer Willy Cessa.
Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim was commissioned by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; co-commissioned by the Harris Theater for Music and Dance; co-commissioned by and developed in part at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College and The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts, Cal State Northridge and Northrop, University of Minnesota; with additional commissioning support from Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center at Auburn University; Meany Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Washington; American Dance Festival; and The Joyce Theater Foundation's Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work.
About Ragamala Dance Company
Ragamala Dance Company is the vision of award-winning mother/daughter artists Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy. Over the last four decades, Ranee and Aparna's practice in the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam has shifted the trajectory of culturally rooted performing arts in the United States to create an exemplary company within the American dance landscape. Through both intimate solos and large-scale theatrical works for the stage, Ranee and Aparna empower the South Asian American experience. By engaging the dynamic tension between ancestral wisdom and creative freedom, they reveal the kindred relationship between ancient and contemporary that is urgently needed in today's world.
Featuring Aparna Ramaswamy as Principal Dancer, Ragamala has been commissioned and presented extensively throughout the U.S., India, and abroad, highlighted by the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Joyce Theater (New York), Lincoln Center (New York), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (MA), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), The Soraya (Southern California), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT), Cal Performances (Berkeley), Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Just Festival (Edinburgh, U.K.), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India), and National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), among others. ragamaladance.org
About American Dance Festival
Since 1934, ADF has been a recognized leader in America's homegrown art form, modern dance. ADF is committed to serving the needs of dance, dancers, choreographers, and professionals in dance-related fields. The best companies in the world premiere work as part of the festival held each year in Durham, North Carolina. The festival has commissioned 453 works and premiered over 700 pieces including dances by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Bill T. Jones, Eiko Otake, and Paul Taylor. ADF trains dancers both with its summer intensive programs for pre-professional and professional dance artists and year-round classes for movers of all levels and ages. Choreographic residencies provide artists with the necessary space and time to create. ADF shares the benefits of dance with free workshops like ADF Project Dance, in-school and after-school outreach programs, and the Parkinson's Movement Initiative, movement classes for people with Parkinson's and their care partners. For more information, visit americandancefestival.org.
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