How a mother and her daughters created an innovative Indian dance company

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/14/ [login to see] /mother-daughters-ramaswamy-created-indian-dance-company-ragamala-bharatanatyam
Ranee Ramaswamy believes her oldest daughter was put upon the planet to dance.

"We all talk about previous births and reincarnation," says Ramaswamy. When it came to her eldest, Aparna Ramaswamy, she had no doubt. "I think she was a dancer in her previous birth, so it was natural to her. From the age of 3 to now, she has never deviated."

So 30 years ago, Ranee founded the Ragamala Dance Company in Minneapolis, partly as a vehicle for her talented daughter. In the decades since, Ragamala has become famous among U.S. fans of India's oldest classical dance form, bharatanatyam. The dance company regularly gets rave reviews for the dancers' technical precision and spiritual transcendence, as well as for innovative collaborations with other artists.