Photo by Ed Bock.

Ranee Ramaswamy

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ranee Ramaswamy is Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company. As a dancemaker, performer, and culture bearer, Ranee’s creative vision is driven by a profound commitment to the artistic lineage she carries, intertwined with a pioneering spirit of innovation and collaboration across culture and discipline. Since immigrating from India to the U.S. in 1978, Ranee has been a trailblazer, working tirelessly to create a place for her culturally rooted choreographic work within the U.S. dance landscape. Ranee’s contributions to the field have been recognized by President Barack Obama, who appointed her to the National Council on the Arts, and honors such as a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship, U.S. Artists Fellowship, McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, and Bush Choreography Fellowship. Her choreographic work has been commissioned and presented by The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Joyce Theater, Northrop, Walker Art Center, American Dance Festival, and NYU Abu Dhabi, among many others.


Collaborators

Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy’s intergenerational partnership is an incubator to absorb lessons from the past and evolve them into new paradigms. Their rigorous practice weaves the ancient and current within Bharatanatyam.

Aparna Ramaswamy is the Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company.

Ashwini Ramaswamy

As the 3rd/youngest Bharatanatyam practitioner/innovator in the Ramaswamy family, my work is acknowledged for “creating space, not just for more generations but more ways of thinking” – The NY Times

The Liminal Museum


Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy’s intergenerational partnership is an incubator to absorb lessons from the past and evolve them into new paradigms. Their rigorous practice weaves the ancient and current within Bharatanatyam.

Artist Bio

Ranee Ramaswamy is the Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company.

Artist Bio

Aparna Ramaswamy is the Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company.

Artist Bio

Ashwini Ramaswamy

As the 3rd/youngest Bharatanatyam practitioner/innovator in the Ramaswamy family, my work is acknowledged for “creating space, not just for more generations but more ways of thinking” – The NY Times

Artist Bio

The past is present, because it is worth remembering. The artists undertake The Liminal Museum in response to the passing of their mother/grandmother Menaka Ananthakrishnan in 2023. This project traces stories of their family as a microcosm of women in traditional societies. Menaka gave up her place in college so her brother could attend; her aunt was a virgin widow at age 11; a cousin was married and returned due to lack of dowry, ending her prospects. Menaka faced daily inequities, grounded in patriarchy. To cope, she collected keepsakes & mementos — and sketched beautifully detailed portraits. She was also the carrier of 90+ years of knowledge in music, poetry, religion, and family history. Her life—shaped by repression—showed that art is embedded in our bodies and souls and cannot be taken from us. The artists envision an intimate experience of recorded stories and personal artifacts in conversation with the Ramaswamys in live rehearsal, crystallizing how traditions are passed on, regenerated, and reinvented.

Blending installation art, oral and personal history, and Bharatanatyam dance, The Liminal Museum will provide audiences with a moving and contemplative aesthetic experience channeling the wisdom of ancient Tamil culture alongside the challenges of living in contemporary America. The Liminal Museum is a clarion call about female resilience, the necessity of ancestral knowledge, and the complexities of aging in contemporary societies.

From left to right - Ashwini Ramaswamy, Aparna Ramaswamy, and Ranee Ramaswamy, sitting on a set of white stairs in front of a window

Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy

Since 1992, Guggenheim Fellows and Doris Duke Awardees Ranee Ramaswamy (mother) and Aparna Ramaswamy (daughter) have centered ancestral wisdom, excellence, and creativity to contextualize the immigrant experience—upholding Bharatanatyam as a spiritual practice that can inspire, heal, and transform communities. Recently joined by younger daughter/sister Ashwini Ramaswamy, they challenge cultural assumptions and put culturally-rooted artists of color at the center. As South Indian-American creators and cultural carriers, they feel a substantial responsibility to honor the traditions and wisdom of their ancestors while evolving them to new circumstances. They received immersive training under the great dance artist Alarmél Valli of Chennai, India.

In performance, they are continuously and directly communicating with the audience—emotions are cultivated in real time for and with the audience. This reciprocity creates emotional renewal, and is individually & personally significant for each viewer. They aspire to transport audiences, provoking reflection on metaphysical and moral questions, fostering empathy and enriching public discourse.

Their artistry and pioneering vision have catalyzed transformative change in the field, drawing the attention and support of major cultural institutions—including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, NYU Abu Dhabi, American Dance Festival, Joyce Theater, among others and funders such as MAP Fund, NDP, Wallace Foundation, among others.


Collaborators

Ranee Ramaswamy is the Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company.

Aparna Ramaswamy is the Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company.

Ashwini Ramaswamy

As the 3rd/youngest Bharatanatyam practitioner/innovator in the Ramaswamy family, my work is acknowledged for “creating space, not just for more generations but more ways of thinking” – The NY Times

A South Asian woman with long dark hair, wearing a black shirt.

Aparna Ramaswamy

La Canada, California

Described by The New York Times as “thrillingly three-dimensional… rapturous and profound,” Aparna Ramaswamy is Executive Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company. As a dancemaker, performer, and culture bearer, her work mine reveres the artistic, philosophical, and intellectual depths of her artistic lineage, evolving ancestral and cultural knowledge in the diaspora as a catalyst for contemporary human thought. Aparna has catalyzed a bold new vision for Bharatanatyam in the diaspora, charting previously unimagined paths for South Asian dance in the U.S. Her work has been commissioned and presented by major festivals and cultural institutions, including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Joyce Theater, Harris Theater, Northrop, American Dance Festival, Silk Road Ensemble, Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, and many others. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Residential Fellowship (Italy), Rockefeller Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), Joyce Award, four McKnight Fellowships, and a Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from Carleton College.


Collaborators

Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy’s intergenerational partnership is an incubator to absorb lessons from the past and evolve them into new paradigms. Their rigorous practice weaves the ancient and current within Bharatanatyam.

Ranee Ramaswamy is the Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company.

Ashwini Ramaswamy

As the 3rd/youngest Bharatanatyam practitioner/innovator in the Ramaswamy family, my work is acknowledged for “creating space, not just for more generations but more ways of thinking” – The NY Times

Ashwini Ramaswamy, a woman with long black hair, standing in front of a flowering bush.

Ashwini Ramaswamy

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Ashwini Ramaswamy has spent decades studying Bharatanatyam from award-winning artists Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy (her mother and sister), and the legendary Smt. Alarmél Valli of Chennai, India. Her upbringing in both India and the U.S. has encouraged a hybridic and innovative aesthetic and vision. As a founding member of Ragamala Dance Company, she has toured extensively, performing throughout the U.S. and in Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, the U.K, and India.

Ashwini’s choreographic work has been presented by The O’Shaughnessy and the Cowles Center (The Twin Cities, MN); The Joyce Theater and Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), The Yard (Martha’s Vineyard, MA), Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA), The Scottsdale Center (Scottsdale, AZ), The Just Festival (Edinburgh, U.K), Modlin Center for the Arts (Richmond, VA), and BroadStage (Santa Monica, CA), among others.

She has received commissions from the Liquid Music Series, American Dance Platform, Great Northern Festival, Bates Dance Festival, and Perelman Center, among others; residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, UNC Chapel Hill, Kohler Arts Center, NCC Akron, the Bogliasco Foundation (Bogliasco, Italy), and the Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France); and support from the National Dance Project, MAP Fund, USArtists International, National Performance Network (NPN); South Asian Arts Resiliency Fund, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowships for Dance and Choreography, among others.


Collaborators

Ranee, Aparna, and Ashwini Ramaswamy’s intergenerational partnership is an incubator to absorb lessons from the past and evolve them into new paradigms. Their rigorous practice weaves the ancient and current within Bharatanatyam.

Ranee Ramaswamy is the Founding Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer of Ragamala Dance Company.

Aparna Ramaswamy is the Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company.