ASHWINI RAMASWAMY

ASHWINI RAMASWAMY has spent over 30 years studying Bharatanatyam from award-winning bharatanatyam choreographers Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy (her mother and sister), and their guru, the legendary Smt. Alarmél Valli of Chennai, India since 2011. The New York Times describes Ashwini as “weaving together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine…there is a continual flow of energy coursing through her limbs.”

As a founding member of Ragamala Dance Company, she has toured extensively nationally and internationally. As an independent choreographer, Ashwini has received commissions from the Liquid Music Series, the Great Northern Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and the Perelman Center for the Arts, among others; residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, UNC Chapel Hill, Kohler Arts Center, the National Center for Choreography, the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), and The Camargo Foundation (France); support from the National Dance Project, MAP Fund, USArtists International, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowships for Dance and Choreography. Her choreography was a 2021 ‘Best of the Year’ in The Washington Post and a 2022 critics pick in The New York Times.
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Ashwini is a recipient of grants from the McKnight Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and Jerome Foundation, including a recent inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship. Ashwini’s work is supported by USArtists International, National Endowment for the Arts, and New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project. A recent piece was commissioned by The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series, and her work has been developed in residence at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and the Baryshnikov Arts Center (New York, NY).
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Ashwini came to NCCAkron in October 2019 for a residency in support of her new work Let the Crows Come. The work was commissioned by The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music Series, where it premiered in November 2019, and was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project and the MAP Fund.