Ashwini Ramaswamy Creation Residency
February 7–11, 2022
Choreographer and dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy will explore, focus, and build upon her newest work in a creation residency this February at the Arts Center. The residency provides the artist with time, space, resources, and inspiration in creating Invisible Cities, a reimagining of Italo Calvino’s novel.
As a South Indian artist, Ramaswamy will blend myth, spirituality, and text from her homeland to revisit a relationship with the past, bring that to the present, and look toward a future self. Aimed at second- and third-generation immigrants, the work looks to connect the ancestral with the current. In this piece, she will explore and collaboratively reinterpret four distinct cultural and dance lineages including Bharatanatyam (the oldest classical dance tradition in India), Gaga technique, contemporary/African diasporic, and breaking.
During her residency at the Arts Center, Ramaswamy will work with dancer/choreographer Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, who practices African diasporic/contemporary dance techniques. Together, they will explore movement ideas for Invisible Cities, which is set to premiere in 2023.
The Arts Center is thrilled to co-host this residency with the National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron (NCCAkron), where Ramaswamy will continue working on Invisible Cities in March 2022.
Invisible Cities is commissioned by The Great Northern Festival and The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts with support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. The creation residency in Sheboygan is made possible by the Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., the Frederic Cornell Kohler Charitable Trust and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
