The Story of Ram
The Mandala South Asian Performing Arts shared The Story of Ram in Naperville for the first time at Naper Settlement.
“Today we are bringing our seventh production of The Story of Ram in its sixth year. It’s an annual holiday in India preceding the festival of Diwali to celebrate what happens to Ram and Sita before they came back to the kingdom of Ayodhya to celebrate Diwali,” said Pranita Nayar, executive artistic director of Mandala South Asian Performing Arts.
“So we have five different performances by seven different companies representing many different cultures in southeast Asia and so if you think of Shakespeare in the Park, it is similar to that model where you will start at one spot and then Hanuman which is one of our artistic directors at Mandala will take you throughout all five spots and you will see dancers, musicians, artists,” said Saily Joshi, business development consultant at Mandala South Asian Performing Arts.
Coming Together
Bringing the performance to Naperville was a “natural progression,” said Joshi.
“Naperville is such a wonderfully inclusive and diverse city,” said Joshi.
“Under my direction, every celebration of The Story of Ram has been about weaving communities together, about building bridges literally, physically in the performance as well as metaphorically,” said Nayar. “So that’s the most important message that I bring from our Story of Ram. Let’s build bridges. Let’s come together.”
Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.