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"The performance is a joy, so good you wish there were more of it." --Mike Steele, Minneapolis
Star Tribune |
Artistic Director Ranee Ramaswamy creates an evening of dance and music based on New York author Barbara Bash’s children’s book In the Heart of the Village: The World of the Indian Banyan Tree. The banyan is not only a “real” tree, but also a legendary, mythological, and cultural icon representing South Indian culture. In southern India, the banyan is used as an area for gathering, for worship, for community meetings, for children’s play, for theatrical performances, and for greatly needed shade from the hot sun. In Tree Tales, as a narrator reads Bash’s descriptions of the history and daily life of a banyan tree in a small village in India, Ragamala dancers bring these scenes to life through Ramaswamy’s exciting and multifaceted choreography.
This production has been adapted
into a 45-minute lecture demonstration
available for presentation to school and community groups.
Tree Tales was originally presented as a collaboration with Morris Johnson’s African dance company Langa, who portrayed Bash’s companion story Tree of Life: The World of the African Baobab. Tree Tales premiered in October, 1998, at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Length of Concert: 1½ hours including a 15 minute intermission
