Lykanthea is a multidisciplinary collective led by artist Lakshmi Ramgopal, whose performances and installations use pop idioms to experiment with traditional South Asian art forms. Her latest work, Some Viscera, is a collection of song and movement accompanied by immersive stage design that explores childhood, kinship, and memory in the contemporary Indian-American diaspora. The project features a multidisciplinary core ensemble starring Asha Rowland, Erica Miller, Johanna Brock, and Ben Zucker. Together, they integrate elements of Carnatic music, Bharatanatyam dance, Sanskrit and Tamil poetry, Baroque chamber music, and free improvisation to perform rich, intimate dance theater.
The premiere of Some Viscera occurs within the frame of the arangetram, a Tamil word meaning “ascending the stage.” It describes the arduous, long-form, solo performance through which students of classical Indian dance and music debut as mature artists—a celebrated but fraught rite of passage. The arangetram of Some Viscera consists of four principal movements. Each invokes avian and floral motifs from sources that include ancient classical dance and music, medieval Sanskrit poetry, the literary culture of India’s independence movement, and Indian films of the late 1990s. By creating this fanciful world, the movements reflect on cultural knowledge and breakdown.
