Ashwini Ramaswamy’s Let the Crows Come

About

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. In a series of solos/trios, the Indian dance form Bharatanatyam is deconstructed and recontextualized with collaborators Alanna Morris and Berit Ahlgren, who infuse the work with their own traditions of Modern and African Diasporic dance and the Gaga movement from Israel. The New York Times describes the collaboration as “magnetic . . . 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 original, live score features South Indian instruments, electroacoustic cello, and sound sampling/turntables.
 

Let the Crows Come is commissioned 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 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).