The world-class Ragamala Dance Company returns to the Edinburgh Fringe this year with a soul-moving performance of South Indian Classical Bharatanatyam dance. Their programme this year is made up of three pieces, each portraying different aspects of Bharatanatyam. The first a Thillana called Kunthalavarali is a joyous dance piece which features rhythmic and sculptural responses to music. The footwork is awesome, the hand gestures expressive, the eye movements arresting, the body work inspiring. Put together, they achieve a coordinated artistic whole which sings joy. When these dancers dance joy, the lights shine with it, the bells on their ankles tremble with pleasure. Complex cross-rhythms inspire more intricate footwork. The music swells the dancers hold Krishnas flute and the audience is immediately ushered into Krishnas presence. Rapturous applause from the audience greeted the end of the piece. The second, an Abhinaya (literally an offering or transmission), Vazhi Maraittirukkude (The Path is Hidden) is a moving story highlighting discrimination against lower caste in 19th Century India, which features a setting to music of a poem which dates from the 1830s by Tamil poet Gopalakrishna Bharati. It tells an episode from the life of an enlightened Tamil, Nandanar, a low-caste devotee of Shiva. This is a solo dance piece by one of the companys Artistic Directors, Ranee Ramaswamy, which features the storytelling tradition of Bharatanatyam dance. The story is explained in word and gesture in a short introduction, making it easy for the audience to follow during the retelling in dance. Ranee is an awe-inspiring performer. Her ease of movement and faultless transitions from one position to another have a timeless quality which allows her to capture eternity in her flow. As she dances, her hands become extensions of her gaze; her eyes reflect the thoughts in her heart; her being: the personification of her soul, and she forms a living connection to the universal within us all. She becomes more than a storyteller she realises her calling as a priestess or enchantress. The third piece, from which the event takes its name, completes the programme in an extended part-work. Last year, Ragamala performed with Japanese drummers. This year, their performances feature live music from some very accomplished musicians husband and wife team Shubhendra Rao on Sitar, a pupil of Ravi Shankars, and Saskia Rao with the intriguing and haunting sounds of her Indian cello. Saskias instrument is a one-of-a-kind creation specially made to express the soundworld of Indian music. Made to different dimensions than the classical cello, as we know it, it is the only instrument of its kind in the world. On the classical cello, the unfretted neck allows performers to explore the microtones of Indian ragas, but this instrument has an additional string which increases its range and is fitted with another group of strings which cross below them which can be finely tuned and which resonate sympathetically when the main strings are played. The tuning relationships are intricate and allow a breadth of expression and sound quality unmatched by any other string instrument. This allows the sound world of the percussive sitar to be evoked and complemented by the bowed-string soundworld of the cello. Together, they form an intriguing duo. Add to this sound world more expressive dance, which tells the journey of a human soul, from birth through life to death and rebirth and you get, once again, a work of outstanding originality, which is one of Ragamalas hallmarks. Being and becoming meet in sound and gesture. Life is recreated with such energy and vigour they made me feel glad to be alive. Death came peacefully, and movingly, with innovative choreography by Ranee Ramaswamy which went far beyond the standard Bharatanatyam stock gestures in dancing death, Ranee brings life to a living tradition of dance, which was ultimately about rebirth, into which it inevitably flowed. For this is what the show can achieve in a receptive audience the power to be made alive, to cast off an allegorical skin of being and to be reborn. It is no surprise that Ragamala's performance features in the Festival of Spirituality and Peace which takes part within the Fringe. This is much more than just entertainment. It is universal ritual, revival, regeneration. You are rarely likely to get so much for the price of admission to see this. Dont think twice about it book to see Ragamalas Yathra now.
