Aparna (left) and Ranee Ramaswamy / Star Tribune photo by Tom Wallace.

President Obama on Tuesday said he would nominate Twin Cities dancer and choreographer Ranee Ramaswamy as a member of the National Council on the Arts.

The council, which currently has 15 members, acts as an advisory panel to the National Endowment for the Arts and its chairman, Rocco Landesman. It meets three times per year in Washington, D.C.

Ramaswamy founded Ragamala Dance Company in Minneapolis in 1992. She was the Star Tribune's Artist of the Year in 2011, a year that saw Ragamala Dance selected as one of only two U.S. companies to perform at the Kennedy Center's Maximum India Festival in March. Ramaswamy, who practices and teaches Bharatanatyam dance, received the 2011 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.