July 21, 2014
Our 10th anniversary season at The Cowles Center for Dance, 9/18-20
To kick off its 10th anniversary season, Ananya Dance Theatre will present Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming, a multi-disciplinary immersion in the work and world of women’s dreams. The world premiere launches a multi-year series of full-length dances exploring the kinds of work that women around the world do to sustain their communities. Neel will be on stage at The Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, 528 Hennepin Avenue, in downtown Minneapolis. Performances take place at 8pm on Thursday, September 18; Friday, September 19; and Saturday, September 20. There will be a post-show discussion on Friday, September 19.
In addition, there will be a Neel Audience Empowerment Workshop/Open Rehearsal on Wednesday, August 13, 6:30pm-8pm. The event, free and open to the public, takes place at the U of M’s Barbara Barker Center for Dance, 500 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis.
Neel’s narrative arc layers choreography by Ananya Chatterjea and performance by 10 ADT company dancers, guest performance by Shá Cage, composition by Greg Schutte, thematic text by Sharon Bridgforth, vocalizations by Chastity Brown, Mankwe Ndosi, and Pooja Goswami, multi-lingual poetry recited by the dancers, set design by Annie Katsura Rollins, and lighting by Jesse Cogswell.
Neel, meaning blue in Artistic Director Chatterjea’s native language Bangla, evokes the “blues” experiences of past pain and loss. Duke Ellington’s term Blutopia, the name for a short piece he made and recorded in 1944, conjures an epic imaginative leap in this piece. Neel is based on the conviction that some of the most powerful dreaming comes from marginalized peoples, individuals whose desire for transformation cannot be suppressed.
Tickets for Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming are $20-$30. Senior, student, and group discounts are available. Tickets can be purchased online at www.thecowlescenter.org or by calling The Cowles Center Box Office at 612-206-3600. The performance runs 90 minutes without intermission.
Ananya Dance Theatre is supported by ArtsLab, a program of Arts Midwest. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. This activity is funded, in part, by an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the State’s general fund.
• Order tickets from The Cowles Center
• Post-show discussion, Friday, September 19
• A video peek at rehearsal of “Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming”