CHICKASHA, OK: Ashwini Ramaswamy's "Let the Crows Come" at University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma
Company:
Ragamala Dance Company
Ragamala Dance Company's 30th season continues with Choreographic Associate Ashwini Ramaswamy's Let the Crows Come, presented on March 23, 2023 at 7:30pm at the Te Ata Memorial Auditorium as part of the Davis-Waldorf Performing Arts Series at the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma, 1727 W Alabama Ave. Chickasha, OK. Tickets are $20 and are available at https://usao.edu/arts-and-culture/dwpas/22-23-ashwini-ramaswamy.html.
Evoking mythography and ancestry, Ashwini Ramaswamy's Let the Crows Come uses the metaphor of crows as messengers for the living and guides for the departed. Let the Crows Come evolved from a simple idea; when a DJ remixes a song, its essence is maintained while its trajectory is changed. To Minneapolis-based dancer/choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy — a founding company member of the internationally renowned Ragamala Dance Company — this mutation is reminiscent of being a second-generation immigrant - a person that has been culturally remixed to fit into multiple places at once.
"A fascinating, beautifully developed exchange of dance styles"
– The Washington Post, 'Best of Dance 2021"
"Ramaswamy's imagination united and flourished, making space, not just for more generations, but for more ways of thinking."
– The New York Times, Critic's Pick
In a series of three dance solos, Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam technique) and fellow Minneapolis-based dancers Alanna Morris (Modern/African Diasporic technique) and Berit Ahlgren (Gaga technique) deconstruct and recontextualize the South Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam, recalling a memory that has a shared origin but is remembered differently from person to person. The dancers' use of imagery and narrative is set to a commissioned original score: the soaring voice of Carnatic singer Roopa Mahadevan and two other classical Indian musicians - percussionist Rohan Krishnamurthy and violinist Arun Ramamurthy - perform an original piece by Prema Ramamurthy. Concurrently, cellist Brent Arnold extrapolates from the classical Carnatic (South Indian) score, utilizing centuries-old compositional structures as the point of departure for sonic explorations - co-created with composer/DJ Jace Clayton (DJ/rupture) - that incorporate pop music and electronic sounds. After the piece premiered in 2019, it was listed among the 'Best performances of the year' by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnpost, and City Pages, with City Pages citing Ashwini's work as "illuminating Bharatanatyam's future."
Let the Crows Come is commissioned by the Liquid Music Series and is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project and the MAP Fund (both supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), and was developed in part during residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (New York, NY), and the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron (OH).
About Ashwini Ramaswamy
Ashwini Ramaswamy has practiced the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam for over 30 years; as a founding member of Ragamala Dance Company, directed by her mother Ranee and sister Aparna, Ashwini has toured worldwide. Her choreography has been a critic's pick in The New York Times, and among the "Best of the Year" in The Washington Post, The Star Tribune, and Minnpost. Her work has been commissioned by The Liquid Music Series, The American Dance Platform, Macalester College, and The Great Northern Festival, among others; developed in residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, UNC Chapel Hill, Kohler Arts Center, the National Center for Choreography, the Bogliasco Foundation (Bogliasco, Italy), and the Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France - 2023); and supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, National Dance Project, MAP Fund, South Asian Resiliency Fund, US Artists International, the Jerome Foundation and the McKnight Foundation.
About Ragamala Dance Company
Ragamala Dance Company is the vision of award-winning mother/daughter artists Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy. Over the last four decades, Ranee and Aparna's practice in the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam has shifted the trajectory of culturally rooted performing arts in the United States to create an exemplary company within the American dance landscape. Through both intimate solos and large-scale theatrical works for the stage, Ranee and Aparna empower the South Asian American experience. By engaging the dynamic tension between ancestral wisdom and creative freedom, they reveal the kindred relationship between ancient and contemporary that is urgently needed in today's world. Featuring Aparna Ramaswamy as Principal Dancer, Ragamala has been commissioned and presented extensively throughout the U.S., India, and abroad, highlighted by the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Joyce Theater (New York), Lincoln Center (New York), Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival (MA), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), The Soraya (Southern California), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT), Cal Performances (Berkeley), Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), Just Festival (Edinburgh, U.K.), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Sri Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India), and National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), among others. ragamaladance.org
About The University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma Davis-Waldorf Performing Arts Series
The mission of the Davis-Waldorf Performing Arts Series at the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma is to regularly present professional performing arts events, to facilitate student attendance at these shows as an important part of a liberal arts education, to provide affordable entertainment for our college family and our community, and to lead local arts education by creating access to high-quality, relevant, culturally diverse programming that broadens the aesthetic of each audience member.
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