Ashwini Ramaswamy: Let the Crows Come

Saturday, January 15, 8 pm
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts

Evoking mythography and ancestry, Let the Crows Come uses the metaphor of crows as messengers for the living and guides for the departed. This dance for three with live music explores how memory and homeland channel guidance and dislocation. Featuring Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam technique), Alanna Morris-Van Tassel (Contemporary/Afro-Caribbean technique), and Berit Ahlgren (Gaga technique), Bharatanatyam dance is deconstructed and recontextualized to recall a memory that has a shared origin but is remembered differently from person to person. Composers Jace Clayton (dj/rupture) and Brent Arnold extrapolate from Prema Ramamurthy’s classical Carnatic (South Indian) score, utilizing centuries-old compositional structures as the point of departure for their sonic explorations. Let the Crows Come premiered in November 2019. 

Ashwini Ramaswamy’s dancing “weaves together the human and the divine.” — The New York Times 

Ashwini Ramaswamy is an independent choreographer and choreographic associate with Ragamala Dance Company. Ramaswamy’s work references ancient myths and ritualistic practices, global literature and poetry, and the mixed media contemporary culture she has absorbed for 35 years, drawing from myriad influences to express a personal identity that has universal resonance.