Aparna Ramaswamy
Executive Artistic Director, Choreographer, and Principal Dancer

Described by The New York Times as “thrillingly three-dimensional… rapturous and profound,” APARNA RAMASWAMY (Co-Creator/Choreographer/Principal Dancer) is Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company. She is a dancemaker, performer, and culture bearer whose work mines 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. She is the life-long disciple and hand-picked protégé of legendary dancer/choreographer Padmabhushan Smt. Alarmél Valli, one of India’s greatest living masters, who has selected Aparna as the artist to carry her artistic lineage into the future. 

As Executive Artistic Director of Ragamala Dance Company, 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—and supported by the National Dance Project, MAP Fund, Wallace Foundation, Joyce Foundation, and Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, among others. In September 2021, Aparna’s Fires of Varanasi: Dance of the Eternal Pilgrim (created in collaboration with Ranee Ramaswamy) was selected to open the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary celebration.

Aparna’s choreographic work ranges from emotionally spacious yet intimate solo presentations performed with live music, to large-scale, multidisciplinary theatrical works. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, Bogliasco Foundation Residential Fellowship (Italy), Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Research Fellowship (Italy), Joyce Award, four McKnight Fellowships for Dance and Choreography, and the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from Carleton College, among others. (www.aparnaramaswamy.net)

Aparna is committed to inspiring a new generation to think and act innovatively, sparking conversations about cultural hybridity in the 21st century. She has served as a guest lecturer and featured speaker at Carleton College, Wesleyan University, Dartmouth College, Bucknell University, Pace University, Lawrence University, the University of Iowa, the Dance/USA National Conference, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and the “Body Voices: Reimagining Culture, Community, and Politics” conference hosted by NYU Abu Dhabi, among others. As a teacher, she has educated numerous students in her unique Bharatanatyam lineage and aesthetic. She is an alumna of Carleton College with a degree in Political Science and International Relations.