ANITA RATNAM'S STONE

Anita Ratnam's performance Stone is engaging and beautiful, entrancing. She does many things in this performance. Not only is she presenting the still universal issues of women's sense of being trapped within society's rules through her constraints created by the beautiful textiles she is wrapped in, but she is also evoking the animating lifeforce of the land, springs and rocks that many indigenous people believe in, by being in a rock. And yet, amongst the music there was a steady, quiet but relentless presence of a hammer, chipping away at some bedrock, slowly breaking rock, releasing the stone's soul, yet she remains within it, but eventually is released. This hammering was not calming, but increasingly built a worrying tension.

As woman's power is slowly trying to come out of the rock, nearby someone is breaking up rock, as if she has to deal with her own rage of entrapment as well as the rage of being broken at the same time, while being released. By the time she is released from the rock, she is the spirit of the rock now materialized, with the strength and the power of that rock in human form, stopping past aggression and encapsulating the power of rock of the earth and of life itself. This is an elegant and evocative depiction of the power of the landscape merged with female power, unstoppable.
- Christine Hastorf, University of California, Berkley


In "STONE...Once Again," Anita Ratnam transforms the plain purple jersey garment that held Martha Graham's mourning in her signature 1930 piece, "Lamentation" into a scintillating, reflective golden garment that announces not sorrow but transformation from bondage to liberation. Anita's work declares it time for Indian women to emerge and claim the full power of self-determination and speech. Most effective for me was the opening segment when, breaking away from Graham's tightly enclosing stretchy fabric, Anita's "Ahalya" gently folds and unfolds herself beneath a sheer metallic almost tent-like veil. Here, under the revealing and concealing gold, her long open arms and fingers both supplicate and invite, then wrap her in the comfort of self-embrace like a single-celled being. Equally potent was the moment when fingers, then red lips, then eyes and a full face later break through the more restrictive stretch garment. It is a delight to see this stunning prima of India's dance world continue to evolve in wisdom and beauty.
- Deidre Sklar, PhD, Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner ® , Carpinteria, CA