Ashwini Ramaswamy & Kevork Mourad: Invisible Cities work-in-progress conversation with Sanjit Sethi
Presented by The Great Northern
Monday, January 31, 2022
6 pm Doors // 7 pm Event
Free Admission // Reservations Requested
All Ages
Ticket Purchases are Final and Non-Refundable
*The Parkway Theater requires Proof of COVID-19 Vaccination or Negative Test Result for entry to all events. This policy is detailed here.*
Choreographer/dancer Ashwini Ramaswamy’s Invisible Cities reinterprets Italo Calvino’s metaphysical/philosophical novel through interwoven cultural perspectives, with interactive projections created by internationally renowned artist Kevork Mourad.
This work-in-progress conversation, moderated by MCAD President Sanjit Sethi will delve into the process of adapting a multifaceted, layered work of literature (set to premiere during The Great Northern 2023 with copresenting partners The Cowles Center and Northrop) collaboratively, with an inspired collective of artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds.
“[Ashwini Ramaswamy] weaves together, both fearfully and joyfully, the human and the divine. There is a continual flow of energy coursing through her limbs.” — The New York Times
“The wonderful phenomena of [Calvino’s] Invisible Cities are seen as through some unfolding nuclear kaleidoscope” — The New York Times Book Review
About the work:
As a South Indian artist, Ramaswamy draws from the myths and culture of her homeland to resurrect her relationship with the past and reprocess that past into the present. Her work is aimed at second and third generation immigrants longing to make connections between the ancestral and the current. Working with groups of dancers of four diverse dance backgrounds (Bharatanatyam led by Ramaswamy, Gaga technique led by Berit Ahlgren, Contemporary/African Diasporic led by Alanna Morris-Van Tassel, and Breaking led by Joseph Tran), Ramaswamy builds upon a choreographic methodology she began in 2019’s Let the Crows Come (named ‘Best of the Year’ in the Star Tribune, City Pages, and MinnPost).
Invisible Cities extends beyond the kinetic realm with live, interactive projections created by internationally renowned artist Kevork Mourad, a longtime admirer of Calvino’s book. Both haunting and hopeful, ethereal and full of depth, Mourad’s visual architectures provide a dynamic and unpredictable dimension to the artists’ examination of the way the built environment and human life interact.
Dancer/choreographer Ashwini Ramaswamy’s upbringing in both India and the U.S. has encouraged a hybrid artistic perspective. Heralding from a family of dancers/dancemakers, her chosen and inherited medium, the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, is a living, breathing language with which to speak about the contemporary human experience. The foundation of Ashwini’s work begins with decades of dance training with her gurus - her mother Ranee Ramaswamy, sister Aparna Ramaswamy and the legendary Smt. Alarmel Valli of Chennai, India – to uphold the balance between technical rigor, physicality, grace, and expressive authenticity that is the hallmark of their Bharatanatyam lineage.
Akin to a quilt, Ashwini sees her generative work as the assemblage of experiential mementos that conjure a visually salient and emotionally impactful symbol of home. Like a phantom limb, her Indian ancestry lingers with her, informing her daily interactions and artistic interests. As a dancer with Ragamala Dance Company, she has performed at venues worldwide, including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, NYU Abu Dhabi, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai, India. As an independent choreographer, Ashwini has received commissions from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series, The American Dance Platform, and the Great Northern Festival, residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), UNC Chapel Hill (North Carolina), and the National Center for Choreography (Akron, OH), and support from the National Dance Project, the MAP Fund, and US Artists International, an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship and McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowships for Dance and Choreography. Her choreography has been listed among the ‘Best of the Year’ in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnpost, City Pages, and Big Dance Town. As a 2019 City Pages ‘Artist of the Year,’ Ashwini’s work was highlighted for ‘illuminating Bharatanatyam’s future.’
Born in Qamishli, Syria, Kevork Mourad now lives and works in New York City. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts in Armenia.
Mourad employs his technique of live drawing and animation in concert with musicians – developing a collaboration in which art and music harmonize with one another. Collaborators include Yo-Yo Ma, Kim Kashkashian, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Brooklyn Rider, The Knights, Perspectives Ensemble, Paola Prestini, and Kinan Azmeh and he has performed in many institutions, including The Aga Khan Museum (Toronto), The Art Institute of Chicago, The American Museum of Natural History, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, ElbPhilharmonie (Germany), Rhode Island School of Design, Nara Museum (Japan), Lincoln Center Atrium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Walt Disney Concert Hall. Mourad has been a resident teaching artist at Brandeis University, Harvard University, and Holy Cross (Worcester). He is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble and is featured in the film “Music of Strangers” (2016).
Recent commissions include Israel in Egypt, for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Sound of Stone to accompany the exhibition “Armenia!” for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Well Wish Ya, a dance performance piece with the OYO Dance Troupe in Namibia. His performance Home Within, co-produced with clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, has toured the world. The 2016 recipient of the Robert Bosch Stiftung Film Prize, he premiered his animated film, 4 Acts for Syria, at the Stuttgart Animation Festival. In 2019 he had a solo exhibit at Tabari Artspace in Dubai. In September 2019, he exhibited at Latitude, in Yerevan, Armenia, alongside Imran Qureshi, Roberto Pugliese, and Walid Siti. That year he was also commissioned by the Aga Khan Foundation to create a site-specific 20-foot drawing-sculpture called Seeing Through Babel, at London’s Ismaili Center, addressing the importance of diversity in our contemporary times. The piece was exhibited starting in October 2020 at the Asia Society Triennial in New York. In October 2020 he also premiered the visuals for Beethoven’s Fidelio for the Korea National Opera. His works are in the permanent collection of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.
Sanjit Sethi has over two decades of experience as an artist, curator and cultural leader. Sethi’s previous positions include Director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, Director of the Center for Art and Public Life, Barclay Simpson Professor, and Chair of Community Arts at the California College of the Arts; and Executive Director of the Santa Fe Art Institute. Additionally, Sethi has taught at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sethi has a BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, an MFA in Ceramics from University of Georgia, and an MS in Advanced Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sethi has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, including a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg, and a Fulbright fellowship in India. He serves on the boards of the Alliance for Artist Communities, the Jerome Foundation, the Archie Bray Foundation, the Association for Independent Colleges of Art and Design and Moving Arts Espanola.
Sanjit Sethi is the 19th President of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
The Great Northern celebrates our cold, creative winters through ten days of diverse programming that invigorate mind and body. In an era of changing climate that threatens our signature season, we seek to create community, inspire action, and share the resilient spirit of the North with the world.