Mohona: Estuaries of Desire, 2013

Our Community Get involved

We are fierce optimists who believe that creating with intention can make a difference in the world. Our socially engaged artistic process builds community and nurtures leadership in cultural activism. This community includes our dancers, artistic collaborators, staff, board members, social justice collaborators, and audiences.

We imagine our community in terms of three overlapping circles with different points of contact with our work. At the center are the artists of Ananya Dance Theatre, women and femmes from global BIPOC communities, working in the Twin Cities with the belief that their artistic practices are important forces of healing, joy, beauty, and community. The next circle includes our staff, board, collaborators and guest artists, and all our families and friends who keep the company going and whose advocacy is crucial to our growth. The other circle embraces participants in classes and community workshops, and artists, activists, audiences with whom we connect at home and on tour.

Our people: Artists

Our performers take pride in their identity as both committed professional dancers and cultural activists. We believe in and practice the immediate association of the aesthetic and the political.

We believe that the powerful together-dancing of Black and brown women and femme artists, arising from our rage, joy, struggles, and aspirations, prepares for groundbreaking shifts toward justice in our communities. For us, dancing toward excellence and justice means conjuring and manifesting an-other reality where marginalized communities and different notions of beauty and power are activated, transformative possibilities are embodied, and paradigms of power can shift.

Staff

Current artistic collaborators include

Nash Gallery Performance

Performing at the “Flotilla for Peace” installation, Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. July 11, 2013.

Artistry, administration, production, governance

Ananya Dance Theatre acknowledges with gratitude the numerous contributions of time, creativity, consultation, and resources provided since 2005 by the following individuals in the areas of artistry, administration, production, and governance.