ACRE Benefit Performance
ACRE Projects is pleased to present an ACRE Benefit Performance by Lykanthea, the sound and movement project of multidisciplinary artist Lakshmi Ramgopal. This performance will feature Erica Miller and Hanna Brock on strings. All proceeds will go toward scholarship funding for a South Asian artist attending the residency in the summer of 2019.
Over the last four years, the work of Lykanthea's Lakshmi Ramgopal has transformed from explorations of electro-ambient pop idioms into expansive performances and installations. Her debut EP Migration garnered praise from Noisey, Chicago Tribune, and Public Radio International’s The World for its alchemy of synths, catchy melodies, and Carnatic improvisatory techniques. The record led to a European tour, Leipzig’s Wave-Gotik Treffen, and an opening performance for the 50th anniversary celebrations of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where she shared a bill with Billy Corgan, Lupe Fiasco, and Jamila Woods. Amid all this, she completed a PhD at the University of Chicago.
Since the death of her maternal grandmother and birth of her niece in 2017, Ramgopal has turned her attention to herself with atavistic questions of motherhood and personal legacy with projects like A Half-Light Chorus, a sound installation she created for Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago’s Lincoln Park Conservatory that featured vocalists imitating the calls of birds from India and Sanskrit literature. These projects accompanied multidisciplinary ensemble shows that herald a shift in Ramgopal’s storytelling—one that eschews electronics and synths and embraces the warmth of the sruti box, unprocessed vocals, and performance art and dance.
These journeys find a home in Some Viscera, Ramgopal’s follow-up to Migration, which is due at the end of this year. A study in the search for renewal after loss, hope mingles with despair in her new record. In Lykanthea lies the eternal possibility of transformation and rebirth.
Friday, March 22nd, 8pm
Download Lykanthea's debut EP Migration for free at https://lykanthea.bandcamp.com.
Image by Sierra Thompson