Children of Dharma

Coppell Arts Center is pleased to announce Ragamala Dance Company's Children of Dharma is coming to Coppell on Friday April 25 at 8pm. The performance explores life—forever sprouting, transforming, dissolving, and renewing—through three characters from the Hindu epic The Mahabharata. These myths reveal the power of ancient cultures to reaffirm humanity’s relationship with nature and the sacred.

Children of Dharma was created by mother-daughters Bharatanatyam artists Aparna Ramaswamy, Ranee Ramaswamy, and Ashwini Ramaswamy. The performance is a Northrop Centennial Commission that builds upon decades of the company’s pioneering work centering ancestral wisdom, artistic excellence, and creativity to contextualize the immigrant experience. Ragamala continues to “show how Indian forms can be some of the most transcendent experiences that dance has to offer” (The New York Times) by upholding dance as a spiritual practice that can inspire, heal, and transform communities.

The work provokes a visceral response to crises over the ages, from environmental devastation and oppression to unjust wars. Why does war unleash the animal in man? What have we done to our relationship with the natural world? Through lush visual imagery, an original recorded score, and poetic movement integrating intimate solos with powerful ensemble choreography performed by seven dancers, Children of Dharma reveals the power of ancient cultures to unearth some of the most enduring questions of conscience facing humanity. 

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. 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.”

Find more family fun events every day of the week at dfwchild.com/calendar.