Ragamala Dance Company | June 9-10, 2027

Sacred Earth

World Premiere January 31, 2026, Pfleeger Concert Hall, Glassboro, New Jersey

Choreography by Ranee Ramaswamy, Aparna Ramaswamy, Ashwini Ramaswamy

Music by Prema Ramamurthy

Score Development by Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy with Preethy Mahesh, C.K. Vasudevan, Sakthivel Muruganantham, Ramanathan Kalaiarasan, Lalit Subramanian, Anjna Swaminathan, Rajna Swaminathan

Musicians Lalit Subramanian (vocal), Kasi Aysola (nattuvangam), Rohan Krishnamurthy (mridangam), Arun Ramamurthy (violin), Visveshwar Nagarajan (flute)

Audio Engineer Maury Jensen

Original Artwork by Anil Chaitya Vangad (Warli) Ranee Ramaswamy (Kolam)

Lighting Design by Jeff Bartlett

Lighting Director/Production Manager Garvin Jellison

Video Projection Design by Perimeter Productions

Costumes by D.S. Aiyellu

Ragamala Dance Company’s signature work, Sacred Earth is a powerful, hour-long journey of movement and music that celebrates the beauty and vitality of the natural world. Performed as a continuous arc of high-energy dance and evocative poetry, the work unfolds like a living ritual.

Ragamala Dance Company represents the South Indian classical dance form called Bharatanatyam. In Bharatanatyam, dancers combine Nrita (pure technical dance) with nritya (symbolic hand gestures) and natya (dramatic expressions, mostly in the face) to tell stories. The dancers wear colorful sarees (draped cloth garments, also commonly referred to as saris) and jewelry that accentuate their movements. Bharatanatyam is highly detailed and precise - dancers coordinate fluid movements of the head, arms, and fingers with rhythmic stepping, jumping, and lunging. Ragamala is a proponent of contemporary Indian dance - while they maintain some traditions of Bharatanatyam, in Sacred Earth, they also incorporate non-traditional elements, including group formations, projections, and complex lighting designs. The dancing is complemented with demonstrations of Kolam (decorative floor drawings, using rice flour) performed by the dancers onstage. The images projected behind the dancers throughout the work represent the tribal art of the Warli people of western India.

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Ragamala Dance Company was founded in 1992 by Ranee Ramaswamy and is under the leadership of Co-Artistic Director Ranee Ramaswamy and Executive Artistic Director Aparna Ramaswamy, and Choreographic Associate Ashwini Ramaswamy (mother and daughters). Rooted in the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam, the company has been hailed by The New York Times as “soulful, imaginative, and rhythmically contagious.” Through multi-disciplinary dance works for the stage, engaging the community, and educating the next generation, Ragamala epitomizes intercultural and immigrant narratives that evoke a shared sense of humanity and has transformed the American performing arts landscape by marrying cultural integrity with rigor and a bold artistic vision. Among their awards and honors are a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship. Their choreographic work has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and the American Dance Festival among many more.

Ranee Ramaswamy (Co-Creator/Choreographer/Principal Dancer) is Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company. Ranee currently serves on the National Council on the Arts, appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama. As a dancemaker, performer, and culture bearer, Ranee’s creative vision is driven by a profound commitment to the artistic lineage imparted to her through four decades of training under legendary Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer Padmabhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, intertwined with Ranee's pioneering spirit of innovation and collaboration across culture and discipline. She is a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, a Bush Fellowship for Choreography, and 15 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography and Interdisciplinary Art, among others.

• Dance rooted in tradition but reimagined for today

• Highly detailed, expressive movement

• Companies like:

  • Õkāreka Dance Company

  • Black Grace

  • ChangMu Dance Company

• Cultural rituals and meditative performance experiences

• Nature Inspired art and handmade design

• Slow, intentional experiences—like savoring a beautifully spiced meal

• Traditional Indian clothing or jewelry