SANTA MONICA, CA: BroadStage presents Ashwini Ramaswamy's "Let the Crows Come" (West Coast Premiere)
Company:
Ragamala Dance Company
Ragamala Dance Company's 30th season continues with Choreographic Associate Ashwini Ramaswamy's Let the Crows Come, presented on April 7 & 8, 2023 at 7:30pm at BroadStage at Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th Street, Santa Monica, CA. Tickets start at $40 and are available at broadstage.org/performances/2022-23/dance/letthecrowscome.
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.
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).
"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
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 BroadStage
BroadStage gathers artists, thinkers, and audiences to celebrate our shared humanity and expand the role the arts play in the vitality of our diverse community. BroadStage is an industry-leading performing arts producer and presenter located on the Los Angeles' Westside, providing a platform for the world's most compelling artists working the theatre, dance and music, and multidisciplinary artforms. Building upon its first decade, the organization is rising to meet a rapidly evolving set of needs for artists, audiences, community and campus, with the aim to advance its role as an invaluable cultural resource and artistic ambassador for greater Los Angeles.
A beacon of Santa Monica College (SMC) – one of the country's most progressive, diverse and accessible educational institutions – BroadStage harnesses the transformative power of the performing arts as essential to well-being and society. Established in partnership with SMC in 2008, both organizations are aligned on core values of creativity, learning, and belonging. With the leadership of Artistic and Executive Director Rob Bailis, BroadStage is strengthening its impact through a new artistic vision, an expanded venue footprint, and enhanced community activation. These activities invite a deeper relationship to the artists on our stage and to the work they passionately share.
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