Ratna Roy (Leader – Performing Arts, 2019)

September 30, 2019 412 0 0

Ratna Roy, Ph.D., was born in Ranchi, India, and completed her Master’s in English from the University of Calcutta (now Kolkata), through the Presidency College. Subsequently in 1966, she came to the United States to complete her Ph.D. in English from the University of Oregon in 1972. Her acclaimed dissertation was in African American literature, one of the earliest in the field. Initially as a child trained in Katthak and Bharata Natyam, Ratna started her training in Odissi dance in 1972 under Guru Govinda Chandra Pal, and from 1977 until his death in 2003, under Padmashri Guru Pankaj Charan Das in the little known tradition of the devadasis (temple priestesses) of the Jagannatha Temple in Puri. As one of Guru Pankaj Charan’s seniormost disciples, she has performed extensively as a soloist in India, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, the Baltics, South Africa, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, China, and Japan. In the US she is also well-known for her own choreography based on her dual heritage as an Indian and an American and her penchant for the disadvantaged. Ratna has published several articles in both Indian and US journals as well as a well-reviewed book, Neo-Classical Odissi Dance, and has received fellowships and awards for her traditional dance, choreographies, and dance scholarship, including the Advanced Fulbright Research Fellowship for her dance research (1985), American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowship (1988), National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship (1988), Summer Fulbright Fellowship (1988), Arts International Award (2001), Fund for Folk Culture Award (2005), Washington State Arts Commission’s Master Apprenticeship Award (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010), the Gordon Ekvall Tracie Memorial Award from Ethnic Heritage Council, Washington (2008), Washington State Arts Commission’s Fellowship Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (2008), “Building Bridges across the Nations” award for her “exemplary contribution to the community” to honor the memory of Mahatma Gandhi (2014). As a scholar on Odissi dance she has been a speaker for Humanities Washington in 1988-1990, 1991-1993, 1995-1997, and 2012-2014. In 2015, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Odissi Dance, Odisha, India, and on March 17, 2018, Ratna received the Adiguru Pankaj Charan Das Parampara [succession] Samman Award from Nalco in Odisha, India, and in 2019 the Heritage Arts Apprenticeship Award from Humanities Washington and Washington Arts Commission. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus, The Evergreen State College (1988-2014) and Artistic Director, Urvasi Dance Ensemble. Through dance scholarship, Ratna has broken the artificial boundaries between arts and humanities in her lectures accompanied by dance. She has also striven to give voice to the disenfranchised through dance interpretation, choreography and scholarship.