THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, December 13, 1985

many have returned to the home-
land. I enjoy the Jewish community
in India a great deal, though. Again,
it's the Indian graciousness and
warmth. My daughter was born
there and had her naming ceremony

dance as she was, Lowen, 36, said,
"It's really quite reasonable to be-
come interested in Eastern (influ-
ences) because they were very im-
portant in the development of mod-
em dance. What I did was just go
further with (the interest)."
After graduating from U-M with
an M.A. in dance, Lowen — who had
begun, off-campus, to study classical
Indian dance with Indian dancer
Minati Roy — applied for and was
granted a Fulbright to study for nine

in Deli — it's a very family-like at-
mosphere."

months, then return to the United
States and continue with modern
dance," she said. "But, after I'd spent
nine months there, I was just begin-
ning to get a foundation in the tech-
nique, and it would have been a
waste of time I'd already spent there
if I hadn't stayed longer.
"So, the grant was extended two
years, and, at the end of two years, I
had a little more technique, but still
didn't feel I had that much. The tra-
ditions are so old you have the kind
of solid art form that ballet • offers —
and a classical tradition you can't
master in two years, of course. Also,
the rhythms in the dance are very
elaborate and challenging."
At about this same time, Lowen
was offered a position to teach im-
provisational theater, puppetry, and
modern dance at the American Em-
bassy School in New Delhi. She
stayed on at the Embassy and con-
tinued to study dance for another
three years.
"By the end of that period, I had
been in India about five years — and
that's really when I decided I wanted
to focus on Indian dance." •
Meanwhile, another important
event came to pass in her life, when,
in 1975, she returned temporarily to
Ann Arbor to marry C. Thomas
Ault, a theater arts professor she
had met while a student at U-M.
They returned to India together
shortly afterward, and he taught
also at the American Embassy
School for the next three years.
(Nowadays, home base for the
couple and three-year-old daughter
Tara Rebecca is Shreveport,
Louisiana, where Ault teaches at
Centenary College.)
"Between 1973 and 1985, I've
spent close to nine years in India al-
together," Lowen said. "Normally, I
spend about 50 percent of my time

B ill Pugliano

months in India.
"When I first came to India, it
was my intention to study for nine

Detroit native Sharon
Lowen has won international
acclaim for a foreign
art form: the difficult,
ancient dances
of India.

••■

in India, mainly performing. But the
past few years, I've been going over
for only about three or four months
in the winter, because my husband
hasn't been able to go."
Next year, however, she plans to
spend more time in India, where
Ault, a scenic designer, has geen
awarded a one year fellowship to do
research on folk drama.

"I feel very comfortable in In-
dia," Lowen said. "A large part of
the reason is the people, who are so
hospitable and gracious. Friendships
seem to mean more there — people
make time for people, even though
they may have much (work) to do,

they somehow always have time for
their friends.
"Another reason is that there's
such a cultural richness there. The
kind of variety you might get if you
traveled 1,000 miles in the United
States, you get every 100 miles in
India — everything from the way
cloth is woven, to the kinds of
jewelry, to the food, and the lan-
guages." (Lowen speaks some Hindi,
although English is spoken by most
of those with whom she works.)
"The Jewish community in India
is not as large as it used to be. Al-
though the Jews have always lived
in India without persecution, since
the State of Israel was established

Lowen, who has performed and
taught also in Mexico, Indonesia,
Canada, and Africa, said daughter
Tara usually travels with her when
she's on tour.
"She's a very good, co-operative
girl," Lowen said, "Things work out
well, although sometimes my time is
very, very close. I try to manage
usually by dealing just with the pre-
sent crisis — sort of a tone-day-at-a-
time' method."
"I lived in Ann Arbor for a year
about two years ago, while my hus-
band was teaching in the theater
department at U-M," she said, in an-
swer to a question about when she
had last been in the area. Then, in a
comment descriptive of her always- -
on-the-move lifestyle, she revised the
statement a bit: That is, I lived in
Ann Arbor for a year, except when I
was living in India for several
months!"
Even while in Detroit during
her recent trip, Lowen was on the
road" a lot and didn't have much
time to spend visiting with her
mother, Ethel, who now lives in
Southfield. During her ten-day
stopover, she performed at several
schools in Saginaw, Roseville and
Kalamazoo, in addition to two per-
formances as part of the Detroit In-
stitute of Arts Youth Concert Series
and her main performance at the
DIA. From there, she was scheduled
for several other stops in Michigan,
before going on to Missouri, Indiana,
Minnesota, Iowa and California. The
tour concludes with a performance at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York.
"I feel I have a nice balance now
— concerts, school programs, re-
sidencies and teaching," said Lowen,
when asked about plans for the fu-
ture. "I think I'd like to keep on
doing exactly what I'm doing."
Are there other American dan-
cers whose career has taken the
same unusual turn as Lowen's?
"There are many Americans
who study Indian dance," she re-
plied. But there are virtually none
who are professional dancers — ex-
cept myself." [1]