She did a performance and workshop at the UN Conference on Women in China in 1995 and toured the Kansai area in Japan with a Japanese company, Lasenkan, in 1996. She has performed in several countries, including India, Great Britain, the Baltics, Indonesia, Singapore, China, Philippines, Japan, and South Africa. This work was in conjunction with Beijing Opera choreographer from China, Cao Chen, who played the role of Rahwana). TagoreвЂ™s lyric, Karna Kunti Samvad, rendered in classical Orissi music, dealing with issues of an abandoned child confronting his birth mother), Mahabharata War with Sundanese music, and Tears of Rahwana (from the Ramayana to Sundanese gamelan music, dealing with the pain of a war widow. Subsequent new works for spring production in 1997 at The Evergreen State College in Olympia as well as The Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, included Karna Kunti (Dr. In 1997, Ratna choreographed scenes from the Gita Govinda with Western music (in conjunction with modern dancers, performed for On The Boards on April 24, 25, and 26). She also choreographed a piece that told the story of the rabbit in the moon, sung in Japanese.

More recently, in 1996, Ratna did seven performances of a traditional Orissi dance number, Moksa, with taiko drumming in Japan with Lasenkan. In 1990, Ratna went to Latvia and choreographed and performed portions of the epic, Lacplesis, in Liepaja.

In 1988, Ratna choreographed and performed a Sundanese poem, sung by Indonesian musicians, in Bandung, Indonesia. Since then, she has choreographed and performed with poetry readings by Marvin Bell and Robert Bly. RatnaвЂ™s experimental work began in 1981 when she choreographed a dance to Northwest poet Lonny KanekoвЂ™s Sukiyaki Mama and performed it in Nippon Kan with jazz drumming. Arun Chandra, an Evergreen faculty member), a continuation of the theme of Resistance, a two-hour, multi-chaptered, multi-media collage, using dance and animation, and Seeds of Liberation (based on Staying Alive and Biopiracy by Dr. Her choreography has included the intense dance drama of India's first struggle for independence, Jhansi Ki Rani, Dowry Death (based on the murders of thousands of women because of lack of adequate dowry), Amandla Awethu/Mukti (a retelling of racial and communal violence in India, South Africa, and the US), and an adaptation of the Nobel Laureate poet, Rabindranath Tagore's Chitrangada, the Warrior Princess (as a tale of privileging the light-complexioned women in Indian society and marriage), Temptation (voicing the perspectives of the marginalized), Resistance (a celebration of the power of the women who were dancers-scholars in the past), Lament (a tale of desolation caused by so-called advancements in technology, performed to computer music, composed by Dr. In 1989, she received the National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship and began following the footsteps of her teacher. Ratna went back to India on an American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowship in 1988 to research the indigenous theatre traditions of Orissa, for their influence on Orissi, as well as to investigate the spiritual fountains of the dance style. She observed firsthand the stylistic growth of Odissi dance through the years of its rediscovery, the Orissi Renaissance, then she had opportunity to interrogate that development as an American scholar with the perspective of distance during her year as a Fulbright Advanced Research Scholar (1985-86). Ratna quickly became enthralled with this dance form and began applying herself to a deeper understanding of Orissi dance. in English, in her 20вЂ™s, she began training in Orissi, initially for rehabilitation from physical disabilities. Unable to eschew dance for an extended length of time Ratna, after a brief hiatus from dance for familial reasons during her teen years, began training in the South Indian temple dance, Bharata Natyam. Born in Ranchi, Bihar, * India, Ratna trained in the Lucknow gharana ** of classical Katthak Dance from the age of four. Ratna is also founder and artistic director of the Urvasi Dance Company. Ratna Roy is full-time faculty at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, USA.

Dr. krishnaveni mishra