Where could you go with your “10-second attention span teenager” and your “deeply spiritual 70 year old parent” and get them glued together to their seats with their eyes wide open in awe for a full two hours? The spectacular Ramayana dance drama that was enacted to perfection a full house at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA on May 31st- that’s where.

“Ramayana - A Visual Journey” unfolds like your typical Bharatanatyam presentation with an Anjali. What follows is what sets this one wide apart. A Ranjani Saigal production,  presented by the non-profit Vision Aid, this fascinating dance-drama brings to life the timeless global Epic of Indian origin, Ramayana, using an imaginative and highly creative combination of live music, Jathis (pure dance movements), Swarams (musical notes) and engaging English narration.

This highly creative and tastefully unique production synthesizes the various age-old interpretations of the ancient poem retold over generations in various Indian languages like Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Gujarati by legendary composers and poets like Valmiki, Kamban, Goswami Tulasidas, Thyagaraja, Arunachala Kavi, Swathi Thirunal and Narsing Mehta, and masterfully storyboards its way through the various Kandas using creatively selected verses, while sustaining the smooth program flow of a traditional Bharatanatyam recital.

Don’t get thrown off by the ‘creative’ and ‘unique’ labels, though. This is not one of those obstipational attempts of misguided enthusiasm that go down the treacherous dark lane of exploiting the cheap thrills of vilifying venerable figures and high values, and romanticizing demons and demonic traits, in the guise of ‘creativity’.

This one is “Ramayana as it is” – exactly as it is intended/documented by the original authors, and in its authentic form that inspired people across the world over the centuries - ‘visually re-interpreted’ in a trendy way while still staying true to the universal values espoused by the hoary epic; a masterful attempt that indeed presents a fresh and creative visual interpretation, without compromising the narrative integrity of the tale or diminishing the values it conveys.

How did Ranjani Saigal get the material for the production? "I have always been fascinated by the different versions of the Ramayana and it has been my dream to synthesize the ideas of the different poets. The power of the story is such that each  work is a masterpiece unto itself. I did a lot of research and consulted with several scholars including  Dr. Balram Singh, Dr. Bijoy Misra, Dr. Uma Nellaiappan, Chandu Shah and my father Dr. R. S. Ayyar before creating the storyboard and choreographing the dances" says Saigal.

Any production of this grandeur needs a versatile and inspired performer with a wide repertoire to employ a full range of emotion and technique and convey the vision of the producer and the spirit of the text.

The young and talented dancer Amudha Pazhanisamy, grand niece of the legendary dancer Balasaraswathi, and student of Ranjani Saigal, filled this spot perfectly well with her skilful rendition of the rasas matching the wide variety of emotions evoked by Geetha Murali’s melodious Voice in tandem with Surya Sundararajan’s mellifluous Violin.

Amudha’s exacting coordination of footwork, immaculate body language and diverse mudras (hand gestures), bhava excellence‚ exploiting to the full her face and form with expressive delineation, synchronized to the ‘T’ with the finely intricate beats of A.R. Balaskandan’s Mridangam in perfect resonance with Dr. Revathi Ramaswamy’s lilting Veena and Ranjani’s reverberating Natuvangam, transported viewers over to about 5000 years back in time to the Itihasic times of the Ramayana.

Amudha’s fine dancing talent and the graceful movements negotiated through her nimble nritta portrayed divine beauty in motion and awakened the spirituality of the viewers to transcend them from the mundane into an elevated state of sheer delight, a blissful state of unison of the inner self and the physical being.

Ranjani Saigal’s English narration made the spiritual content of the epic accessible to a contemporary audience – especially the Americans and some second-generation Indians - in a way that is both entertaining and authentic while ensuring that the integrity of the source texts is well-preserved.

For those in the audience that were not familiar with the Ramayana, this was an informative and heart-warming experience, a spellbinding excursion into a religious epic and a rich culture that produced that epic. For those who grew up with close familiarity to tales from, and living the values espoused by the spirit of Ramayana, the effect of this visual interpretation was spectacular and cherished. If the goal of the production was to bring Ramayana visually to people who had never experienced it before, and regale people who are intimately familiar with it, it’s has been very successfully accomplished.

It’s said that when the sacred dance of Bharatanatyam is performed to perfection, the divine entities of God-head and the celestial beings which the performers portray manifest themselves on the stage and erase the veil between the human and the supernatural. This was indeed the case with this performance, as is evident from the standing ovation the production got from a full house, and the numerous accolades that the performers got backstage from the visibly moved members of audience.A special mention must be made of the gorgeous  Madhubani paintings  by Sunanda Sahay from Acton, Ma that adorned the entrance way setting just the right welcome mood for the performance.


As an icing on a perfect cake, all the proceeds from this production were used to support the non-profit organization Vision-Aid, the non-profit organization that serves the visually disadvantaged. Monies received from the Traditional Apprentice Award program from the Massachussetts Cultural Council helped offset the costs for the event. The team of Vision-Aid including Anu Chitrapu ,Chandrika Govardhan, Ramakrishna Raju & Revathy Ramakrishna,  Shailesh Durgapal ,Paramesh Garimella , Kaustubha Phene,Umayal Ramanathan ,Sudhir Varma, Dr. E.Vijayakumar should be congratulated on a very professionally organized and an extremely successful fundraising event that started to the dot at 3:00 pm and overshot its fundraising goal by a significant margin.

For more information on vision aid please check out their website at

http://visionaid.org/

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