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NORTH AMERICAN Newsline
Baryshnikov arts center to Present nY Premiere of
ashwini ramaswamy’s ‘let the crows come’
OuR BuREAu
New York, NY
aryshnikov Arts Center (BAC)
will present the New York pre-
Bmiere of Minneapolis-based
choreographer and dancer Ashwini
Ramaswamy’s Let the Crows Come,
an experimental Bharatanatyam
work, and a “Best of Dance 2021” se-
lection by The Washington Post. Per-
formances will take place Wednes-
day–Friday, April 13–15, at 8pm, at
BAC’s Jerome Robbins Theater, 450
West 37th Street, in Manhattan.
Let the Crows Come, which was
developed during a 2018 BAC Res-
idency and premiered as part of the
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liq-
uid Music Series in November 2019,
has been lauded for its “enchanting
beauty, arresting movement, and
inventive intelligence” that “illumi-
nates Bharatanatyam’s future” (City
Pages). Evoking mythography and
ancestry, it uses the metaphor of
crows as messengers for the living
and guides for the departed—and
in the process explores how memory
and homeland channel guidance and
dislocation.
Let the Crows Come evolved
from a simple observation: When a
DJ remixes a song its essence is main-
tained while its trajectory has shifted.
To Ramaswamy, a founding compa-
ny member of the internationally re-
nowned Ragamala Dance Company,
this mutation is reminiscent of being
a second-generation immigrant—a
person who has been culturally re-
mixed to fit into multiple places at
once. “My upbringing in both India
and the US has encouraged a hybrid
aesthetic perspective, and my work
is aimed at immigrants longing to
make connections between the an-
cestral and the current,” explains
Ramaswamy. “I create environments
for the stage where past, present,
and future intermingle; these worlds
capture the disorientation and reori-
entation of the immigrant settling
into a new land and explore how to
preserve individuality while creating
new spaces of convergence.”
With Let the Crows Come, Ra- al boundaries. In a series of solos
maswamy examines ritual, tradition, performed by three dancers with
and iteration through a genrebend- distinct artistic lineages and move- Berit Ahlgren (trained in Gaga tech- audiences for the arts by presenting
ing evolution of movement and ment styles— Ramaswamy (trained
music across cultural and corpore- in Bharatanatyam), Alanna Mor- deconstructed and recontextualized
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MARCH 18, 2022 | The Indian Eye 26
to recall a memory that has a shared
origin but is remembered differently
from person to person. The original
score, performed live, takes inspi-
ration from Carnatic (South Indian
classical) music. Composers Jace
Clayton (aka DJ/rupture) and Brent
Arnold extrapolate from Prema Ra-
mamurthy’s Carnatic score, utilizing
centuries-old compositional struc-
tures as the point of departure for
their sonic explorations.
Let the Crows Come features
Ashwini Ramaswamy and dancer/
choreographers Berit Ahlgren and
Alanna Morris. Original music by
Brent Arnold, Jace Clayton, and Pre-
ma Ramamurthy. Music performed
by Brent Arnold (cello), Jace Clayton
(electronics), Rohan Krishnamurthy
(mridangam), Roopa Mahadevan
(vocals), and Arun Ramamurthy (vi-
olin). With sound design by Maury
Jensen and lighting design by Mat
Terwilliger.
Let the Crows Come was com-
missioned by the Saint Paul Chamber
Orchestra’s 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 An-
drew W. Mellon Foundation). The
work was developed in part during
a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts
Center (NYC) and the National Cen-
ter for Choreography at the Univer-
sity of Akron (OH).
BAC is the realization of a
long-held vision by artistic director
Mikhail Baryshnikov who sought to
build an arts center in Manhattan
that would serve as a gathering place
for artists from all disciplines. BAC’s
opening in 2005 heralded the launch
of this mission, establishing a thriving
creative laboratory and performance
space for artists from around the
world. BAC’s activities encompass a
robust residency program augment-
ed by a range of professional ser-
vices, including commissions of new
work, as well as the presentation of
performances by artists at varying
stages of their careers. In tandem
ris (trained in Modern and African with its commitment to supporting
Diasporic dance traditions), and artists, BAC is dedicated to building
nique)—the Bharatanatyam form is contemporary, innovative work at af-
fordable ticket prices.