CHENNAI: Margazhi is a magical time for performing artistes for myriad reasons. For youngsters, it is a time to showcase their talents, for veterans, to celebrates their journey. It is a month where Chennai is soaked in mellifluous tunes and rhythmic steps. Dancer and teacher Ramya Harishankar has another reason to celebrate. Her Arpana Dance Company, based in Southern California completes 40 years. To commemorate that, Ramya and her team will present the south India tour of SHE. The event in Chennai will be held as part of Dance For Dance Festival, curated by Malavika Sarukkai, in partnership with Shreya Nagarajan Singh’s Art Development Consultancy.
“Margazhi this year is a special season for many reasons. We are part of three festivals this year and that is quite exciting. Natya Kala Conference, Natya Darshan and Dance For Dance, are all prominent events within the Margazhi festival. Another reason is, my school turned 40 in 2022 in California. Because of the pandemic we celebrated the 40th year this year, so it also marks a kind of landmark event for us in the light of my work in California,” shares Ramya.
Exploring the feminine
As part of SHE tour, Ramya and her students are doing three performances. After Chennai, they will be heading to Bengaluru and Mysuru next week. The production first premiered in Los Angeles four years ago. While Ramya’s students performed all the pieces in the original, in the south India tour, Ramya will also be doing a couple of performances. “We are doing a condensed version; instead of five dancers, we are doing with three as only three could make it to India. My students will dance all three pieces together and I will do three solos myself,” she shares. The artistes alongside Ramya include Visalini Sundaram, Nitya Pujara and Shefali Appali.
SHE explores feminine identity through movements and storytelling. The Bharatanatyam production takes the audience on the mythological journey of the Devi as well as the personalised narratives weaving through classical sagas of the goddess and ending with the communal ordeals of women. It utilises emotion as its through-line and creates a parallel and continuity between the immortal goddess in all her forms and the mortal woman. “Our focus is on the feminine and, of course, divine feminine — the navarasa of the Devi — but we are also trying to give the women agency through old compositions with a new perspective. I want to contemporise them to the new generation, a new world in which we all are,” explains Ramya. Following this performance this weekend, on December 28, as part of the Natya Kala Conference at Krishna Gana Sabha, her short film on climate change, Bhumika will be screened.
Cultural collaborations
Born and raised in Chennai, Ramya moved to the US in 1981 after her marriage. It was a time when not just Indian classical dance, but the concept of Indian dance itself was negligible. Ramya became a pioneer of sorts who introduced the dance form to the West. “A few families wanted me to teach. I wasn’t planning on teaching but realised very quickly that it is the only way I could be fully involved in dance. There were no opportunities like sabhas or organisations presenting dance at that time,” she says.
As a teacher she had to don many hats. “You can’t just be a performer or a teacher, you have to produce your event, and raise funds. We have also presented over 150 Indian dance artistes from all over the world. We collaborate with local organisations to present artistes. Now there is more diversity and inclusion. It is the result of many years of work and establishing one’s credentials to get a foot in the door,” she explains.
A challenge for Ramya is to present an art form not just to a new generation but also to a completely different audience. “I look at Bharatanatyam as a language and not necessarily religion based. It does have its roots in Hindu philosophy, but we can also separate it and use it as a language. So we have done a lot of collaborations with Flamenco, Japanese Kinnara Taiko, and my students recently performed with a symphony… You have to figure out a way to insert the language of Bharatanatyam to different spaces and with different audiences. We try to do something different which is more interesting for the audience,” she says.
In the 40th year of Arpana Dance Company, Ramya, through the Ektaa Center, a non-profit organisation that she has founded, has started a grant to raise money to present dancers. “It’s not to support my company or my work but to present dancers and embed Indian art into the fabric of the greater community beyond the diaspora,” she signs off.
SHE South India Tour
Date: December 23
Time: 7.30 pm
Venue: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mylapore
Natyakala Conference 2023
Topic: Bhumika, a mother’s lament
Date: December 28
Time: 1.45 pm to 2.15 pm
Venue: Krishna Gana Sabha, T Nagar