by Camille LeFevre
Minneapolis StarTribune Staff Writer
March, 2003
Only uncommonly open, creative minds could have dreamed up "Bhakti" (Devotion), a lovely new work by the Ragamala Music and Dance Theater. They are Ragamala associate artistic director Aparna Ramaswamy, vocalist and theater visionary Ruth MacKenzie and famed Indian composer and singer Nirmala Rajasekar.
In the hands of this trio, the soaring melodies and earthy religious poetry of Hildegard von Bingen, an 11th-century German saint, and the passionate hymns to Vishnu by 8th-century Indian poet Andal are combined with the South Indian temple dance, Bharatanatyam, to enlightening effect.
The 60-minute piece, performed to live flute and drums, is divided into an introduction and three sections -- the three wings of "the Great Mystery" Von Bingen describes in her poem "O Virtus Sapientiae." The artists explore the synergy between these diverse expressions of art and spirituality.
In the first section, MacKenzie, Rajasekar and soprano Vera Mariner sing of the creators' wings unfurling. The dancers -- dressed in shimmery saris in shades of silver, orange and blue so they look like slivers of "the sun and moon at once" -- enact how "all the cosmos rests in your mind." The dancers' fingers fan out and their faces are enveloped in bliss as they drop to their knees and fold their arms across their chests in devotion.
The second section expresses how the divine wing nourishes the Earth with its sweat. Here the creative trio chose to juxtapose the diverse art forms. Von Bingen's melodies flow from MacKenzie's voice like airborne ribbons of song, then Rajasekar sings and claps a rhythmic Indian melody. Aparna and Ranee Ramaswamy express the beating of wings and the blinding gaze of the divine with their fluttering fingers, crooked arms and tilted torsos; they crouch, with one leg straight out and the opposite arm extended, like horizontal rays of light.
In contrast, the other dancers periodically burst onto the stage, their feet slapping the floor and their arms waving.
The third section weaves the art forms together again to express the third wing "moving like a thread through all things." Here the lush, evocative quality of fully integrated music and dance reaches its pinnacle. The dancers' expressive faces, angled elbows, flexible fingers, weightless leaps and rhythmic stomps combine to evoke villages, deities, landscapes and emotions as the vocalists sing of how "everything in the world teaches us that we are bound by both body and soul to the Great Mystery."
It's a timeless and universal message that " Bhakti" confirms with beauty and strength.
