News Releases
News from Lane Community College
Department of Music, Dance and Theatre Arts
Event: Classical Indian Dance Company: Ragamala Music and Dance Theater
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Lane Community College Performance Hall
Lane Dance to Host Ragamala Music and Dance Theater
“Supple gestures and sculpted shapes into a richly evocative dance drama” – Dance Magazine
Event Summary
Ragamala Music and Dance Theater will present Sva (Vital Force) - composed of three works that unfold the beauty elegance, and driving rhythmic complexities of Bharatanatyam, a classical dance form from southern India. With the taiko drumming group Wadaiko Ensemble TOKARA of Nagano, Japan, the work explores the spiritual kinships between Indian and Japanese traditions. Ragamala’s dance work provides a bridge between cultures both ancient and modern, exploring a unique style of living poetry for the stage. Rooted in Bharatanatyam, Ragamala blends dance, music, and poetry. Old forms are used in new ways to retain the past, enhance the present, and inspire the future.
In India, dance has been used both as a vehicle of worship and as an expression of profound emotions, a human being’s most subtle states of mind. The Indian dance system is the oldest and most comprehensive in the world. Bharatanatyam, with a history that goes back more than two thousand years, is a classical Indian dance form that integrates elements of music, theater, poetry, sculpture, and literature. This multi-dimensional art has come down through the centuries, as part of a dynamic, vital, living tradition that offers infinite scope for understanding and exploring the body, mind and spirit.
This event is sponsored by the UO Cultural Forum and the Lane Community College Music, Dance and Theatre Arts Department.
About Ragamala
Combining artistic virtuosity and aesthetic beauty, Ragamala infuses Bharatanatyam with contemporary ideas and multi-level collaborations and commissions. Ragamala has commissioned several acclaimed U.S.-based and international artists of diverse backgrounds, including poet Robert Bly, Chinese pipa virtuoso Gao Hong, New Delhi-based sitarist Shubhendra Rao, Indian cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas, African dance troupe Ko-Thi Dance Company, jazz musician Howard Levy, Japanese drumming ensemble Mu Daiko, former Alvin Ailey dancers Uri Sands and Toni Pierce-Sands, Western composer/ vocalist Ruth MacKenzie, deaf actor Nic Zapko, Bali-based Kecak artist I Dewa Putu Berata, and Japan-based Art Lee and his Taiko group, Waidaiko Ensemble Tokara. Ragamala's visionary work has brought the company to many prestigious venues throughout the world, including the Miao-Li International Mask Festival (Miao-Li, Taiwan), the Open Look Contemporary Dance Festival (St. Petersburg, Russia), the Bali Arts Festival (Bali, Indonesia), the Nagoya Kita Bunka Shogekijyo (Ida City, Japan), the Festival of Spirituality and Peace (Edinburgh, Scotland), the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall (Sarasota, FL), the Lied Center of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (Newark, NJ), and the New Victory Theater (New York, NY).
About Wadaiko Ensemble TOKARA
TOKARA was founded in Nagano Prefecture, Japan by Solo Wadaiko Artist Art Lee, who brought together various taiko and percussion group members to begin the challenge of intensified training of the mind and body in the strict discipline of the taiko. Since then TOKARA has become a strong force in the world of taiko, both in Japan and internationally. TOKARA kicked off its international debut with a six-week coast-to-coast tour of the U.S. and Canada, followed by a two-month tour in 2005...both to critical acclaim and sold out audiences. TOKARA has since performed as the main attraction in many events, including: Hamanako Hanahaku All-Japan Expo and the Taipei City 120th Anniversary World Music Festival. Touring internationally two to four times a year, TOKARA has become known for its electrifying speed and power, as well as the groups own arrangements of movement that incorporate the smooth, circular motions of the Chinese martial arts and dance.
More about the dance work Sva
The work encompasses three movements:
Ardhanareeshwara Stotram the origin of the creation is conceived as the celestial unity of the Divine Feminine, Shakti, and the Divine Masculine, Shiva. The transcendent balance of Ardhanareeshwara (the representation of Good as half-male and half-female) reflects the constant symmetry of the world itself. Performed by acclaimed soloist Aparna Ramaswamy, the ancient hymn known as the Ardhanareeshwara Stotram is a sublime homage to the sacred concept of duality.
Yathra (Journey) explores the intricacies of the human journey - from the dawn of birth to the twilight of life. With an original score by renowned New Delhi-based composers Shubhendra Rao and Saskia Rao-de Haas that intertwines the deep, haunting tones of the cello with the virtuosic harmonies and emotional range of the sitar, Yathra is an exquisitely layered artistic rendering of the human experience.
Sva (Vital Force) embodies the rhythm and flow of life and the primordial sound that unites all of creation - the sacred and the profane, the animate and inanimate. Based in Nagano, Japan, Wadaiko Ensembel Tokara’s sweeping movements, thundering force, and stunning physicality brilliantly compliment Ragamala's fluid precision, punctuated footwork, and sustained gestures. Sva highlights the creativity of two lauded young masters of their respective forms, Art Lee and Aparna Ramaswamy, and explores the kinships between Taiko and Bharatanatyam an, the spiritual traditions from which they emerged, and their journey into the 21st century.
Tickets: $15 (general), $7 (students)
For tickets or more information: tickets.uoregon.edu or 346-4363
###
Public information officer: Joan Aschim, (541) 463-5591, aschimj@lanecc.edu
Submitted by John Watson, Marketing and House Lane Community College Department of Music, Dance and Theatre Arts, ph. 541-463-5161 email watsonj@lanecc.edu
