Let the Crows Come is “a fascinating, beautifully developed exchange of dance styles”
-The Washington Post ‘Best Dance of the Year’
”arresting…the dancers…joined forces as if the threads of Ramaswamy’s imagination had united and flourished, making space, not just for more generations but for more ways of thinking.” - The New York Times (Critic’s pick)
“[Ashwini] weaves together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine. There is a continual flow of energy coursing through her limbs.”
— The New York Times
I have spent years steeped in the south Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam.
I am committed to maintaining the beauty, technique, rigor, and values embedded in the form as it has been taught to me, while creating my own personal vision of women’s representation in performance. Like a phantom limb, my Indian ancestry lingers within me, informing my artistic work and daily interactions; my upbringing in both India and the U.S. has encouraged an aesthetic perspective with a hybrid internal compass.
As an artist of diaspora, I am a cultural carrier with an instinct to move within ancestral patterns. There is a continuum between what we perceive as real/tangible and what we accept as unknown/unknowable; this gravitation between the human, the natural, and the metaphysical—which are forever engaged in sacred movement—is a focal point in my work.
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“On stage we see unfold the rational thought behind Ashwini's carefully considered movement, yet the overall effect is one of utter enchantment. For one hour we are transported into an exquisite dream state.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
Let the Crows Come
Commissioned by the Liquid Music Series and created in part through a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, UNC Chapel Hill, and a fall 2019 Production Residency at the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron.
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