Interview: Ragamala Dance Company, ‘Ananta, The Eternal’

Ahead of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024, we’re chatting with a range of creatives who will be heading to the city over August to find out more about their shows. Today we’re chatting with Ragamala Dance Company about Ananta, The Eternal.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career so far..

I am Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company, based in the United States. As a dancemaker, performer, and culture bearer whose work mines the artistic, philosophical, and intellectual depths of my artistic lineage, my work evolves ancestral and cultural knowledge in the diaspora as a catalyst for contemporary human thought. I am the life-long disciple and hand-picked protégé of legendary Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer Padmabhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, one of India’s greatest living masters.

My choreographic work ranges from emotionally spacious yet intimate solo presentations performed with live music, to large-scale, multidisciplinary theatrical works that have been commissioned and presented by major festivals and cultural institutions—including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Joyce Theater, Harris Theater, Northrop, American Dance Festival, Silk Road Ensemble, Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, and many others—and supported by the National Dance Project, MAP Fund, Wallace Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, among others, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Residential Fellowship (Italy), Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), Joyce Award, among others.

What is your show about?

Ananta, The Eternal is a suite of four original Bharatanatyam solos and duets that weave together threads of body, memory, desire, and devotion. The pieces, which were created to be performed in small, intimate settings, uplift the eternal relationship between the deity and the devotee.  Ananta is embodied in the experience of beholding the image of the divine with one’s own eyes. A central act of worship, it is charged with meaning. It is reciprocal and electric. The sacred is present in this auspicious moment.

What was the inspiration for Ananta, The Eternal and what’s the development process been to get to this stage?

In Sanskrit, Ananta is a concept that embodies the infinite, the endless, and the limitless expanding into infinity. With this piece, I am interested in finding the relevance and universality of ancient forms that weave together multiple artistic ideas (literature, movement, and music, etc) to express the underpinnings of society. How do we feel part of a community? What is our relationship with the sacred? How do we find justice in how we all work together? In Ananta, I have woven together four sections that are essentially about the relationship between the seeker and the sacred. This idea of expanding into infinity really touches on the principles of the sacred manifesting as an extension of nature, and as part of the cycle of creation, existence, destruction, and regeneration.

 What made you want to take Ananta, the Eternal to the Fringe?

 My ongoing transnational artistic exchange brings Bharatanatyan and all of its cultural scaffolding into a globalised present. The work of transmitting and upholding tradition in a new place, and the building of diasporic identities, is an active, ongoing, and creative process. At a time of historic global migration—as people around the world increasingly claim multiple, hybrid identities—I remain committed to helping to construct a society that centres multiple experiences and perspectives, using the strength of our diasporic narratives to build something bigger than ourselves.

It is becoming more important than ever to share our immigrant experiences – not just to build understanding between cultures, but also to help strengthen and guide burgeoning communities. By offering a vital perspective on our polyphonic global community, my work is dedicated to creating meaningful transformation during times of discord; its message of cultural affirmation, social evolution, and societal healing is both enduring and acutely of the moment.

Apart from seeing Ananta, the Eternal what’s your top tip for anybody heading for Edinburgh this summer?

Bring comfortable shoes that are water proof - there is a lot to see and it rains often!

Why should people book Ananta, the Eternal?

Mainstream audiences/presenters who encounter Bharatanatyam often assume it to be a reproduction of a tradition carried across oceans by immigrants. Of course, there is no such thing as a fixed tradition anywhere; traditions are always evolving. Nowhere is this more evident than in our vision of Bharatanatyam. My Bharatanatyam is both a classical language and a contemporary vision, richly shaped by the ancient, medieval, modern, and individual.

While Western dance culture tends to prioritize ensemble performances, this form of Bharatanatyam is rooted primarily in intimate performances which allow the beauty and power of the form to clearly come through, making a direct connection with the audience.

Starting at a time when no one in the U.S. dance field looked like us or shared our experience, my mother Ranee and I worked tirelessly to forge relationships with curators, commissioners, funders, press, and audiences, educating them about our art form and our vision, and insisting that our work be seen, recognised, and valued—not only on the ‘ethnic’ margins, but in a prominent place on the U.S. dance landscape. I see it as my honour and responsibility to continue to build on this work, deepening the artistic excellence of my practice while sharing my work with an even larger, international audience. 

When and where can people see Ananta, the Eterna;

Where: Assembly at Dance Base, Dance Base 3

13-25 August (not 19)

13:00 - 14:00

Tickets: https://assemblyfestival.com/whats-on/489-ananta-the-eternal