The Dance of Shiva

The Dance of Shiva, a dance performance by Aparna Ramaswamy (Co-artistic director of Ragamala Dance Company), in celebration of Mia’s recently conserved and reinstalled sculpture of Shiva Nataraja. Mia commissioned Aparna Ramaswamy, co-director of Ragamala Dance Company, to celebrate the sculpture’s reemergence. The company works within the Bharatanatyam tradition of classical Indian dance, which developed in the temples of southern India along with the famous form of Shiva Nataraja itself. In January, Ramaswamy performed the new piece at Mia, choreographed by her teacher, Alarmel Valli, to music composed by a south Indian king in the 19th century. “Shiva, in his form as Nataraja, is performing the Ananda Tandava—the dance of bliss—in a state of heightened enlightenment,” Ramaswamy says. “In this piece, I describe him as the magnificent, the glorious—austere and fearsome. Yes, he dances in the halls of the temples but also on the cremation grounds. He is the one who wears ash on his body. He wears a garland of skulls. . . . I describe the rapture the devotee feels in witnessing his dance and asking for his grace.” Ramaswamy, who has known this image of Shiva Nataraja all her life, remains in awe of its sweeping symbolism. “In one hand is his rattle drum, the sound of the universe, everything he creates,” she says. “In his other hand is the flame of destruction that destroys everything he creates. The connection of the sacred and the mythological, the body and the cosmos—it all comes together in this statue.”