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The University of Hawai‘i Presents Ragamala Dance Company in "They Rose at Dawn"
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa • Orvis Auditorium
March 11, 2017 • 7:30pm
Ragamala Dance Company,hailed by The New York Times as “soulful, imaginative and rhythmically contagious,” and “providing some of the most transcendent experiences that dance has to offer,” performs at Orvis Auditorium for one night only, March 11. Co-directed by Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy, this mother and daughter duo bring their generational experience to the work—the rich traditions, deep philosophical roots, and ancestral wisdom of India meet and merge with their hybridic perspective as Indian-American artists.
In "They Rose at Dawn," women are depicted as carriers of ritual. Navigating inner and outer worlds, they invoke a sense of reverence, of unfolding mystery, of imagination. Described as “thrillingly three-dimensional . . . rapturous and profound” (The New York Times) and selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch for 2010, Aparna Ramaswamy performs in this solo work accompanied by a stellar Carnatic musical ensemble.
Imbuing the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam with a thoroughly contemporary exuberance and their “visionary approach to an ancient art form,” (Dance Magazine), Ragamala explores the dynamic tension between the ancestral and the contemporary, making dance landscapes that dwell in opposition—secular and spiritual life, inner and outer worlds, the human and the natural, rhythm and stillness—to find the transcendence that lies in between.
