RANEE RAMASWAMY and APARNA RAMASWAMY
Artistic Co-Directors, Ragamala Dance Company
Creators/Choreographers/Principal Dancers
Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy explore the dynamic tension between the ancestral and the contemporary, highlighting the fluidity between the secular and the spiritual, the inner and the outer, the human and the natural. Working in an intergenerational partnership between mother and daughter, their creative vision merges the rich traditions and deep philosophical roots of their Indian heritage with their hybridic perspective as first generation Indian-Americans. As protégés and senior disciples of legendary dancer/choreographer Padma Bhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, known as one of India’s greatest living masters, Ranee and Aparna’s training in the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam is the bedrock of their creative aesthetic.
Among their recent awards and honors are a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (Italy), Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy). Their choreographic work has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Lincoln Center (New York), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT), and the Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), among others, and supporters of their work include the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, MAP Fund, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. They have developed work in residence at MANCC (the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography), the Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, Northrop (Minneapolis), and during an NPN residency at The Yard.
Ranee currently serves on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Barack Obama. She is a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, a Bush Fellowship for Choreography, and 15 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography and Interdisciplinary Art, among others.
Aparna is a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Joyce Award, a Bush Fellowship for Choreography, and four McKnight Artist Fellowships, among others. Described by The New York Times as “thrillingly three-dimensional… rapturous and profound,” she has been selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch and is an empaneled artist with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Her projects include solo, eveninglength works which have toured widely, nationally and internationally, and commissions from the American Dance Festival and the Silk Road Ensemble, among others.
ELIZABETH YNTEMA
President and Founder, Dance Data Project®
Elizabeth Yntema is the President & Founder of the Dance Data Project®. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for WTTW/WFMT and the Board of Directors of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Liza was graduated from the University of Virginia in 1980 and is 1984 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she was awarded the Jane L. Mixer Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Ms. Yntema is a past member of numerous organizations in the Chicagoland area, including the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company, Women’s Bar Association, Trust for Public Land in Illinois, Winnetka Board of the Northwestern Settlement House, the Children’s Home and Aid Society, and the Junior League of Chicago, where she was named as Volunteer of the Year for her work advocating for homeless women and children.
Named to the final full year training cohort of The Philanthropy Workshop (TPW) in 2018, Liza spent a year honing her skills as part of “the next generation of strategic philanthropists.” TPW is a global network of over 450 selected philanthropists, from 26 countries.
Ms. Yntema has underwritten ballets for Sacramento and Pacific Northwest Ballets, the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Company and BalletX, including world premieres by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (Mammatus) and Stephanie Martinez (Bliss!). She has also supported works by Penny Saunders, Robyn Minenko Williams, Amy Seiwert and Eva Stone, as well as Nicolas Blanc and Christopher Wheeldon. Liza was Lead Sponsor of Crystal Pite’s work Solo Echo as part of the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Hubbard Street Dance Company. Most recently, Ms. Yntema is supporting Penny Saunders’ new production with Ballet Idaho and sponsoring Aszure Barton’s new work with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.
In May 2018, American Ballet Theatre announced the launch of its ABT Women’s Movement, a multi-year initiative supporting the creation of new works by female choreographers for the company. Ms. Yntema, along with the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, was an initial Principal Sponsor for this initiative and continues to support its development. Ms. Yntema recently joined the Boston Ballet’s multi-year initiative ChoreograpHER as a Lead Sponsor. Liza also actively supports the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s choreographic initiative for female students, New Voices.
Liza and Dance Data Project® have been featured in the book Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Lisa DeFrank-Cole, Professor and Director of Leadership Studies at West Virginia University and Sherylle J. Tan, Ph. D. a developmental psychologist and Director of Internships and KLI Research at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. Ms. Yntema has also been awarded the inaugural Top Tier Feminist Giver Award by Philanthropy Women in March of 2021.
DDP’s ground breaking work is featured in the book Turning Pointe: How A New Generation of Dancers is Saving Ballet From Itself, published in May 2021.
