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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Let the Crows Come

Ashwini Ramaswamy in Let the Crows Come.

Apr 13–15, 2022
450 W 37th St, #501, New York, NY 10018, United States

“Bharata Natyam is an art which consecrates the body,” it has been said. “The dancer, who dissolves her identity in rhythm and music, makes her body an instrument, at least for the duration of the dance, for the experience and expression of the spirit.” Bharata Natyam is a Hindu form of Indian classical dance. It is as turned-out in the hips as classical ballet, but its modes of articulation are fascinatingly different and distinct. Just as Western classical forms have come in for deconstruction and re-contextualization, so too with Eastern. The Baryshnikov Arts Center presents the beautiful and gifted young dancer and choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy, who is based in Minneapolis, in the New York premiere of her dance Let the Crows Come. It consists of a trio of solos with group work mixed in, and it is about “the idea of ancestry,” she says, “and of cultural memories that may live in the body from generations past.” —Laura Jacobs