Northrop Presents
Classical Forms & Cultural Identity: Looking to the Past to Look Forward
Past event
Nov 07, 2022
Captioning
Join Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer, Ashwini Ramaswamy (Ashwini Ramaswamy and Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities, Ragamala Dance Company), and co-founder and author of Final Bow for Yellowface, Phil Chan, for an online happy hour conversation about adapting stories for the stage and the role of innovation and improvisation in making classical dance forms relevant for contemporary audiences.
This event will be captioned with other accessibility services available upon request.
Photo by Ed Bock
Her work is praised for “[weaving] together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine” (The New York Times, Critic’s Pick). Ashwini’s choreography was listed among the “Best of the Year” in the Star Tribune, Minnpost, and The Washington Post, and was a City Pages Artist of the Year for “illuminating Bharatanatyam’s future.” Her work has been presented by the Joyce Theater and Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), Cowles Center (Mpls), The O’Shaughnessy (St. Paul), The Scottsdale Center (Arizona), The Yard (Martha’s Vineyard), and the Just Festival (Edinburgh, U.K.), among others.
Ashwini is the recipient of grants from the MN State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, The South Asian Resiliency Fund, and Jerome Foundation, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and McKnight Fellowships for dance & choreography. Her work is supported by USArtists International, MAP Fund, the National Performance Network, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, has been commissioned by The Liquid Music Series, The American Dance Platform, Augsburg College, and Macalester College, and 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). Her next project, Ashwini Ramaswamy and Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities, which premieres in 2023, is commissioned by The Great Northern Festival, Northrop, The Cowles Center, The Perelman Center, The Kohler Center, and The Bates Dance Festival.
Photo by Eli Schmidt
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.