Rani Singh was the first South Asian to gain a BA degree in Performance Arts in Britain, from the pioneering Middlesex University where she was taught by distinguished figures such as James Roose-Evans, Charles Marowitz, and mime exponent John Wright.From her childhood she had studied Indian classical dance and music and she continued to study these as part of her degree, although she majored in Drama, making the Hindu epic “the Ramayana” her specialist subject.
After Middlesex, Rani set up Singh Theatre and was invited to be part of the Commonwealth Institute education programmes, both at the Institute in Kensington London and doing outreach programmes all over the British Isles.
She has responded to invitations all over the UK and translated the Ramayana into French. She has performed her unique one-woman rendition of it in French with dance and puppets at Angers.
She has collaborated with many composers and choreographers like Geoff Stevenson (of Spider in the Bath fame) Jon Nicholls, and Kathak exponents Pratap Parwar and Anurekha Ghosh.
She won a Christian Aid grant to visit India specifically to train in puppetry and develop her work and in New Delhi has spent time with Ranjana Pandey and Dadi Padamji.
She has translated techniques learnt in the India for Western audiences with European issues.
She is still one of the few exponents of her discipline in the UK and has gathered the largest collection of South Asian puppets in private hands in the UK. She is continuously adding to her collection, and latest puppets include a young Sikh boy and girl, Krishna and his girlfriend Radha, Lord Buddha, and new animals.
Rani’s stories and wealth of knowledge are sought after by television producers and she is a highly experienced radio writer and performer, having originated and written many programmes for schools radio and for children's programmes. Currently she writes and presents for CBeebies. The material crosses the curriculum in many ways, from history, geography, religion, and culture, to art and drama.
