by Linda Shapiro
Minneapolis
StarTribune
September, 1997
Like the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s famous dog, Ragamala Music and Dance Theater’s production of "Return of the Rain Seed" has a real tale to tell and a real tail to tell it with.
This modern East Indian folk tale of Mala, a girl why yearns to become a boy in order to defeat an evil demon and return the rain seed that the demon has stolen from her village, is told through words, music and Bharatanatyam, a richly expressive dance of South India.
While the charming story is given a lively narration by the actors (particularly Zaraawar Mistry as the King, the Demon and an Old Woman), it’s the visual and auditory rhythms that seduce the viewer. Every part of the body tells a rhythmic or dynamic story--feet slapping the floor as arms and hands move through stylized gestures, the head, neck, eyes, even eyebrows engaged in their own expressive variations.
Originally a sacred form practiced by female temple dancers performing in praise of the Hindu deities, Bharatanatyam is rigorously structured and richly suggestive. Choreographer/director Ranee Ramaswamy employs its nuanced vocabulary to evoke a range of emotional responses and characterizations from the feisty tomboy Mala, spiritedly performed by Ramaswamy’s daughter Ashwini, to the comic ferocity of Kats Fukasawa as the Demon, whipped into such a frenzy when Mala (in the guise of a boy) solves the riddles he has posed for her that he seems about to self-destruct.
Fukasawa, a splendid young dancer, also brings authoritative presence to his role as the King, investing the movement with fluidity and virtuosic strength. Jocelyn Gorham, who plays the King’s minister, successfully evokes her character’s cynicism and sleaze, her wonderfully rubbery face designating her the Groucho Marx of Indian dance.
The chorus of three gypsy women (who also function as Mala’s mother and protectors) invest their dancing with a rakish Romany air. While Ramaswamy herself dances only in two group sections, she functions with her usual charisma as the narrator of Mala’s voice, and as both singer and vocal percussionist.
Ramaswamy has assembled a virtuosic group of classical Indian musicians, including flute player Steve Gorn, tabla player Ty Burhoe and singer Nirmala Rajashekhar, to create a montage of musical styles from North and South India. The richly evocative sound with its drones and sighs, vocal ornamentation and complex percussive patterns interacts with the dance as a corporeal presence.
Like so much of Ramaswamy’s choreography over the past several years, “Return of the Rain Seed” takes an innovative approach to a traditional form. Mala’s boy self is played by an actor, a first in Bharatanatyam where actors and dancers don’t mix. The story itself has a contemporary feminist twist, with Mala learning that her doltish boy self must call on his clever inner girl to succeed.
The opening group dance departs from the Bharatanatyam tradition of unison dancing to allow for variations within the group dynamic, the individual riffs forming buoyant eddies in an incredibly complex sea of movement. It is this combination of formal rigor, clarity and dramatic spontaneity that makes Ragamala’s work so compelling. At their best, the performers seem to be working in sonnet form while speaking in tongues.
