“thrillingly three-dimensional… rapturous and profound"

-The New York Times

RANEE RAMASWAMY and APARNA RAMASWAMY (Artistic Directors/Creators/Choreographers/Principal Dancers) explore the dynamic tension between the ancestral and the contemporary, highlighting the fluidity between the secular and the spiritual, the inner and the outer, the human and the natural. Working in an intergenerational partnership between mother and daughter, their creative vision merges the rich traditions and deep philosophical roots of their Indian heritage with their hybridic perspective as first generation Indian-Americans. As protégés and senior disciples of legendary dancer/choreographer Padma Bhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, known as one of India’s greatest living masters, Ranee and Aparna’s training in the South Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam is the bedrock of their creative aesthetic.

Among their recent awards and honors are a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship (Italy), Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), and a 2020 McKnight Fellowship for Choreography. Their choreographic work has been commissioned by the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), Lincoln Center (New York), American Dance Festival (Durham, NC), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN), International Festival of Arts & Ideas (New Haven, CT), and the Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), among others, and supporters of their work include the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, MAP Fund, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. They have developed work in residence at MANCC (the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography), the Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, the Hopkins Center at Dartmouth, Northrop (Minneapolis), and during an NPN residency at The Yard.

Ranee currently serves on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Barack Obama. She is a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, a Bush Fellowship for Choreography, and 15 McKnight Artist Fellowships for Choreography and Interdisciplinary Art, among others. (www.raneeramaswamy.com)

Aparna is a recipient of a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Joyce Award, a Bush Fellowship for Choreography, and four McKnight Artist Fellowships, among others. Most recently, she was named a recipient of a 2022 Distinguished Achievement Award from Carleton College. Described by The New York Times as “thrillingly three-dimensional… rapturous and profound,” she has been selected as one of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch and is an empaneled artist with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Her projects include solo, evening-length works which have toured widely, nationally and internationally, and commissions from the American Dance Festival and the Silk Road Ensemble, among others. (www.aparnaramaswamy.net)