Everybody together now: Bharatanatyam. OK, everybody slowly together now: BHAR-a-tan-a-ty-am.

You have now mastered the essential term needed to understand the motivating force behind the Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, performing Friday at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

The formidable term may pose a modest challenge to Western eyes and ears.

But in South India, where it originates, it is an integral part of the culture: a stylized devotional dance from the state of Tamil Nadu and its temples.

Bharatanatyam is a solo dance form designed to harmonize mind, spirit and body through a precise grammar of hand gestures and body movements.

According to Ranee Ramaswamy, Ragamala's artistic director, choreographer and founder, the dance form has two major aspects: pure dance and narrative dance.

Both traditions, she says, deploy a complex, "very involved" regimen of gestures, both single- and double-handed, and numbering as high as 28 for the narrative dances.

Not to fear, though, says Ramaswamy.

The Ragamala Music and Dance Theater's performance is called, "From Temple to Theater," and is designed to ferry an audience on a sweeping, colorful, rhythmic odyssey, from Bharatanatyam's classical origins to the new levels pioneered by the Ragamala troupe.

To that end, Ramaswamy's company is based in Minneapolis, where it was founded by her 26 years ago. A native of India, Ramaswamy began her performance life in America dancing a style that was alien to Minnesotans of the early '90s.

"Nobody knew what it was then," she says. "It took me 10 years to educate people to come look at this and say 'this is good.'"

Her turning point came when she collaborated with celebrated American poet Robert Bly, also based in Minneapolis. Bly translated some Hindu verse into English, "and he was so moved that he asked if he could read it for me as I danced."

When they began their collaboration, "people came to see him, but they also saw me."

Bly's translation had a profound impact on what would come later: "For the first time, I saw how people could understand the (hand) gestures. His readings made them very, very clear. It was like a revelation - wow. Then slowly the whole idea to make this art form accessible is the reason we started Ragamala."

Apart from Ramaswamy and her two dancing daughters, Aparna and Ashwini, the rest of the company is non-Indian, which is not a reflection on a dearth of Indian dancers in America.

"Most Indian children go on to become doctors and lawyers," she says. "They don't want to dance as a full-time profession."

At the same time, the troupe's multi-cultural makeup reflects Ramaswamy's experiments with innovation and collaborations with other national and international artists.

Hence, the title, "From Temple to Theater," a transition from sacred to secular that will occur before the audience's eyes and ears, in subtle burst of percussive body energy and colorful silken costuming.

The first dance of the evening will hew to Bharatanatyam tradition, with just one dancer communicating through gestures and body movements with multi-leveled meanings.

Ramaswamy says that even novices in the art of Indian dance will be able to appreciate the first dance for its pure aesthetic value.

As the evening progresses, Ramaswamy's experimentations will begin to assert themselves, as the dancers on stage grow from one to multiple configurations.

By the time the second half of the performance begins, she will have moved the Bharatanatyam tradition from the south of India into stimulating new global quarters - from the a cappella jazz sounds of the cult Belgian group, Zap Mama, to a close rhythmic encounter with the Taiko drummers of Japan.

Ramaswamy likens the meeting of classical Indian dance and other global music traditions to eating rice with different toppings and flavorings.

"The rice doesn't change because of it," she says. "And Bharatanatyan doesn't change because of Zap Mama or Taiko drummers."

However, the exotic global seasonings do stimulate the appetite for more, she adds.

"It's always totally exciting to me to see what we can do next without losing anything that we already have," Ramaswamy says. "In fact, we never take away - we only add more."

---

At a glance

What: Ragamala Music and Dance Theater, "From Temple to Theater"

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $18.10 to $28.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541

Special event: Pre-show discussion and demonstration of Kuchipudi dance from Bloomington's own Lasyasudha School of Indian Dances