he Great Northern Festival, The Cowles Center, and Northrop present the world premiere of Ashwini Ramaswamy & Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities on January 27 & 28, 2023 at 7:30pm, both livestreamed and in-person from the Cowles Center’s Goodale Theater, 528 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN. This two-night engagement is part of Ragamala Dance Company’s 30th Anniversary Season. Tickets are $35 in-person and pay-as-you-are for the livestream. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.thecowlescenter.org/2223/invisible-cities.
Bharatanatyam choreographer and dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy (Ragamala Dance Company), deepens a choreographic methodology she began in 2019 with Let the Crows Come—named a “Best of the Year” in The Washington Post and a critic’s pick in The New York Times. Invisible Cites is a collaborative reimagining of Italo Calvino’s metaphysical novel, interweaving cultural perspectives with a dynamic group of dance artists—Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam); Berit Ahlgren (Gaga), Alanna Morris (Modern), and Joseph Tran (Breaking), and visual artist Kevork Mourad, who creates Invisible Cities’ interactive, immersive projections in real time. Ranee and Aparna join Ashwini as guest choreographers and performers on this work.
‘Choreograph Your Classic’ event on January 19, 2023, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers
Ashwini Ramaswamy, lead choreographer of Invisible Cities, and Will McGrath (author, Everything Lost is Found Again, Farewell Transmission) discuss her process of adapting Italo Calvino’s book as a multi-faceted dance performance (premieres January 27 and 28, 2023). Long an inspiration for artists of many disciplines, Calvino’s 1973 novel is a meditation on the environments all around us.
The Invisible Cities performance will evoke the book’s themes through movement communicated via four dance traditions: Bharatanatyam (Classical Indian), Modern/African Diasporic, Breaking, and Gaga, as Syrian-American digital artist Kevork Mourad fills the space with live illustrations. Hear from Ramaswamy and the other lead choreographers Alanna Morris, Berit Ahlgren, and Joseph ‘MN Joe’ Tran as they describe their process of finding cohesion and harmony among the myriad perspectives they bring to their work.