The SPCO's Liquid Music Series Presents Ashwini Ramaswamy - LET THE CROWS COME

On Friday and Saturday, November 8-9, 2019 at 8:00pm, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music Series presents Ashwini Ramaswamy: Let the Crows Come.

Evoking mythography and ancestry, Minneapolis-based Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy's Let the Crows Come depicts crows as messengers for the living and guides for the departed - and in the process explores how memory and homeland channel both guidance and dislocation. In a series of three dance solos from Ramaswamy and dancer/choreographers Alanna Morris-Van Tassel and Berit Ahlgren, the South Indian classical dance form Bharatanatyam is deconstructed and recontextualized.

Concurrently, composers Jace Clayton and Brent Arnold extrapolate from Prema Ramamurthy's classical Carnatic score, utilizing centuries-old compositional structures as the point of departure for their sonic explorations. Let the Crows Come layers Ramaswamy's interpretation of ritual, tradition, deconstruction, iteration, and origin with a genre-twisting evolution of movement and music across cultural and corporeal boundaries.

"Through my work in Bharatanatyam," says Ramaswamy, "I aim to create opportunities to access an unfamiliar culture yet appreciate its mystery. Like a phantom limb, my Indian ancestry lingers with 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. I am drawn to the 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 is a focal point in my projects."

"We've been developing Let the Crows Come for the better part of three years," said Liquid Music curator Kate Nordstrum. "Each incarnation of the project was a necessary step toward realizing its full potential. I'm proud to have taken the time needed to nurture a beautiful idea, and to have created a strong framework for collaboration. I think I speak on behalf of all involved when I say we're truly ready for the birth of Let the Crows Come and have high hopes for its future."

Friday & Saturday | November 8 & 9, 2019 | 8:00pm. Lab Theater, Minneapolis. Tickets: $25 ($20 for SPCO/Liquid Music subscribers); FREE for children ages 6-17 and students liquidmusicseries.org | 651.291.1144