Leigh Donlan reviewed the Jan 9th, 2025, performance at the Joyce Theater in New York
Twin Cities-based Ragamala Dance Company brought Children of Dharma to the Joyce Theater this week for its New York premiere. Created by Ranee Ramaswamy and her daughters Aparna and Ashwini, the dance beautifully illustrated select tales from the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic, through the traditional Indian form of Bharatanatyam. It was a stunning production that served both as a collective prayer and a piece of artistry.
The 75-minute, three-act work depicted tales of three characters. The first was Krishna, portrayed by Garrett Sour, the only male dancer in the ensemble of seven. Out of darkness, he emerged in smoke and silence, initiating forward movement with his heel, meticulous and precise. He appeared both elevated and grounded at once, a living god sharply eyeing the audience. With lifted knee, flexed foot, upward curving hands like waves woven into the melodies of flute, violin and vocal incantations, Sour was hypnotic.
As was his entrance music, an excerpt from Mikhail Alperin’s Legend and performed by a Tuvan throat singing group and a Bulgarian women’s choir. Text from the Mahabharata voiced at the start of the scene advised, “Through all the bloodshed and conflict that was and is to come, I am present as protector, I am present in all nature, preserving it while being one with it.”
Women flowed onto the stage, their ankle bells sounding rhythmically in the growing light. Willy Cessna’s spare light and set design featured six columned fabric scrims onto which were projected images of a forest and an ancient temple. The second character, Draupati, wife of a faithful, ethical clan, is forfeited to the rival clan in a rigged game of dice. In a fiery duet, Aparna and Ashwini danced with elaborate flowing arms, warrior stances, poetic single and double-handed gestures (mudras) and searing facial expressions. Their mastery of the complex, sophisticated counts (talas) was mesmerizing.
In the final scene, Ranee portrayed the third character Gandhari, mother of a faithless, morally corrupt clan. After her arranged marriage to an elderly man, she withdrew from the material world and neglected her children, who grew up to be greedy, egotistical and jealous. Ghandari’s choices reverberate into a war that results in the death of her 100 sons. Ensemble dancers slumped on the ground in the desolate, ashen landscape, their backs turned to Ghandari. While the scene was aesthetically striking, the energy onstage waned.
In a post-performance discussion, Ranee acknowledged the difficulty of selecting stories from the massive Mahabharata and the reasons why they chose these three: “If you really look at it [the stories], it is symbolic of what is happening today. If we are greedy and we take advantage of the earth, it blows up in fires and storms and natural calamities.” Thus, the belief which the Ramaswamys seemed to underscore in this production is that one’s life is a sacred duty (the concept of dharma,) that our choices send out rippling effects into the collective field, affecting everyone and everything, including nature and the cosmos.
Whether aware of it or not, the audience was also treated to a sound healing, as Carnatic music is known to shift emotional states into higher, more expansive states (similar to how acupuncture works.) Had the music– mostly original compositions for traditional instruments, voice, violin and flute– been live (a huge expense for most companies), it would have been that much more powerful.
Children of Dharma had a brief run at the Joyce, but the company has partnered with the New York Public Library for the next 18 months and will continue to bring performances and lectures there, a high point of which will be Embodied Ritual: Bharatanatyam in the Diaspora this April.
