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Ranee is always giving us that,” says
Nadel, a dancer of Cuban and Jewish descent.
She recalls Ranee taking her to a temple
in India to watch a group of women weaving
jasmine garlands: “I had learned the hasta for
that from Ranee, but had never actually seen
how it was done.” Each year Ragamala takes
over Al’s Breakfast in Minneapolis for a meal of
home-cooked Indian food prepared by the
company, inviting Ragamala fans and supporters
to become part of the extended family.
Artists who have collaborated with Ranee
speak of her generosity of spirit and the warmth
with which she brings them into the Ragamala
fold. “Ranee is the most amazing collaborator
because she is so open,” says actor/writer/
director Zaraawar Mistry, who has worked with
her on several dance/theater pieces. “We may
be heading into the most unknown territory
and she’ll say ‘Sounds great!’” Dancer/
choreographer Wynn Fricke recalls Ranee
walking into her first rehearsal with the Zenon
Dance Company—a modern- and jazz-based
troupe—and saying, “I have no idea what I’m
going to do!”
Philip Bither, McGuire senior curator of
performing arts at the Walker Art Center, has
commissioned and presented three projects
with Ranee, including Sethu (Bridge) in 2004,
a large-scale collaboration with master artist I
Dewa Putu Berata and his Çudamani Ensemble
from Bali. The performance, which included
more than 50 artists, took place outdoors in the
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
“This was a huge project involving
drastically different forms of music, a fire pit, a
procession across the bridge from Loring Park
to the garden, and a group of local men, most
of them non-dancers, performing the Keçak
Monkey Chant,” says Bither. The performance
drew nearly 6,000 people over two nights and
introduced Ragamala to a new audience. “The
difficulties of presenting such a huge event are
usually cause for angst and anxiety, but I had
the utmost faith that Ranee knew what she
was doing,” Bither continues. “She makes
the unlikely and irreconcilable possible and
beautiful.”
“Everything I wanted in India,
I have found here in Minnesota,”
insists Ranee. She recounts how Valli lived
only a few miles away from her home in India,
but she actually met her in Minneapolis. The
companionship she was seeking has come from
her second husband, Dave McKay, whom she
married in 2002. Ranee has journeyed from one
home to another, one life to another, without
losing the essence of who she is. With her
daughters, she has created a legacy to her art
form, and to the city that has allowed her to
go deeper into her own traditions while
reaching out to a wider world. As the great
dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov puts it,