Tamara Nadel

Dancer / Director of Operations

Tamara Nadel is a disciple of Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy and founding member of Ragamala. She has toured extensively with the company, performing on major national and international stages, highlighted by Lincoln Center (NY), Kennedy Center (DC), American Dance Festival (NC), Walker Art Center (MN), Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (IL), International Festival of Arts & Ideas (CT), University Musical Society (MI), Krannert Center (IL), Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Just Festival (Edinburgh, UK), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), and Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India), among others.

Tamara is a 2006 McKnight Artist Fellow in Dance. She is recipient of a Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant, as well as grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Rimon: the Minnesota Jewish Arts Council, the Howard B. and Ruth F. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation. In 2017, Tamara premiered Haven’t I Hidden Your Name? at Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis. This solo dance work, created for Tamara by choreographer Ranee Ramaswamy, is rooted in the writings of the Sephardic Jewish poets of Golden Age Spain and uses the living language of Bharatanatyam to explore the synergies between Jewish and Hindu mystical traditions.

In addition to performing with the company, Tamara is Ragamala’s Director of Operations and a teacher at the Ragamala Training Center in Minneapolis. Tamara holds a degree in Religious Studies and Dance from Macalester College, and has previously served on the City of Minneapolis Arts Commission and on panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, and McKnight Foundation, among others. She currently serves on the board of Minnesota Citizens for the Arts.