Ragamala Dance & Rudresh Mahanthappa, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, New York – review

For the last dance in summer’s Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the musicians arrayed themselves in a column that faced in towards the dancers, as is customary for the Indian dance idiom bharata natyam. But then the first notes sounded – on saxophone.

In place of the raga’s drum rumble, celebrated downtown jazz saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa honked. Instead of the celestial sitar’s slippery zig-zags, the Indian-American composer loosed expressionist squiggles. And in typically democratic jazz fashion, everyone – on Carnatic flute and violin, guitar and double-headed hand drum – took solo turns. But the classical Indian shape of phrase and melody infused even these improvisatory riffs.

It is testament to the depth and thoroughness Mahanthappa’s fusion achieved that the companion dance, built side-by-side with the music and in its spirit, did not rise to its level and yet was pioneering and a rousing pleasure nevertheless. Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy, the mother-daughter team that heads Minneapolis’s Ragamala troupe, ground their creations in bharata natyam’s vast lexicon, evolved centuries ago to dramatise in thrilling detail myriad Hindu foundational tales. But Song of the Jasmine (touring the Midwest this winter and spring) did not tell a story. Rather, with modernist cool, it scattered drama across space.

Instead of the traditional soloist, several dancers – artfully arranged on diagonals or in a diamond to bring out the steps’ contours – moved between the sculptural stances. The choreography set one pattern at centre against another on the margins. It captured in a moment the shifting hues of a single state of mind (waiting, gathering, exulting), with one woman standing, another sitting and a third lunging, their arms and hands individual as well.

Song of the Jasmine is spectacular proof that bharata natyam compels even at distances, such as at the Lincoln Center bandshell, from which you cannot read the darting gaze. But however stunning, Song’s architecture could not suppress the hints of story in the ancient gestures. All five dancers were strong enough to hold the stage alone – and did, in short solos that emulated the music. But the ghost of history was stronger still, crying out in the eloquent steps for the drama in full.

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