We offer performances, workshops, master classes, residencies, and dialogues throughout the year, but September-to-December and March are the best times for us to travel. Ananya Dance Theatre has been presented in 13 other U.S. cities and 11 countries.
In addition to full-length production performances, we offer a variety of workshops and dialogues:
Community conversations: Listening circles designed to respond to local concerns and engage with leaders and community members.
Audience Empowerment Workshops: Participants watch, discuss, re-watch, and partake in movement exploration to connect with the metaphors and energy of abstract dance.
Participatory performances in non-traditional spaces: Audiences and our dancers combine as part of a guided ecological tour.
Arts Access Workshops aka Choreographing Identity Workshops: Training in the basic principles of Yorchha™ and the process of creating movement based on participants’ shared ideas and experiences. For all levels and abilities.
Master Classes: Formal training in core principles of Yorchha™ for intermediate and advanced students and performers.
Lectures: Dr. Ananya Chatterjea speaks on art and social justice.
15 Gestures of Dissent Workshop: Explores the organically expanding number 15 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5), adding a repertoire of dissent from each participant to build a shared expressivity.
Currently available for touring
Shyamali: Sprouting Words, 2017
Audré Lorde cautioned: “Your silence will not protect you.” Shyamali explores the proactive dissent that fuels life force and growth, and recognizes the courage of women across the world who speak up, talk back, and embody dissent to sustain communities against injustice. It celebrates the voices and courage of women who refuse to be broken in the face of adversity and attack. Shyamali (dark green in Chatterjea’s native Bengali language) will be a full-length dance inspired by the metaphoric resilience of grass, moss, and ground cover plants. Chatterjea will create it in collaboration with co-director behavioral artist Marcus Young and her company. Shyamali will premiere in Fall 2017 at The O’Shaughnessy, St. Paul.
“Shyamali: Sprouting Words” is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, in partnership with the Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA, the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Kahului, HI, the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA, The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org.
“Shyamali: Sprouting Words” was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Coming to production 2018: “Shaatranga: At The Edge Of New Worlds”
Shaatranga will premiere in Fall 2018 at The O’Shaughnessy, St. Paul. This dance will be the capstone of Ananya Chatterjea’s five-year exploration of the theme, “Work Women Do.” As ancient trade routes across Asia, the Indian Ocean, and silk routes map the spread of cotton and indigo through colonial to contemporary times, the production and distribution of blue jeans serves as metaphor for the journeys of women of color throughout history to achieve justice.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s residency & performance at Scripps College, Claremont, California, February 5-8, 2016.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s residency & performance at the Crossing Boundaries Festival & Conference, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 21-28, 2015, sponsored by the U.S. State Department.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s residency & performances at Links Hall, Chicago, Illinois, April 13-19, 2015, with support from Arts Midwest, the National Performance Network, and the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s residency & performance at the Historic Holmes Theatre, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, November 6-8, 2014, with support from the Lakes Region Arts Council and the Minnesota State Arts Board.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s classes & performances at the Harare International Festival of the Arts, Harare, Zimbabwe, April 26-May 3, 2013, with support from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s performances at Temple University, Philadelphia, October 5-6, 2012.
Read about Ananya Dance Theatre’s performances at New Waves! Dance & Performance Institute, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, July 22-August 1, 2012.
Arrival at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sept. 21, 2015
As artists of color committed to social justice dance theater, it is urgent for us to create access for others. High production values and good sprung floors are as important as ensuring that youth from low-income communities of color are welcomed into the theater spaces in which we perform and can access the work in multiple ways.
Contacts
Ananya Dance Theatre
Ananya Dance Theatre • P. O. Box 2427 • Minneapolis, MN 55402-0427 • 612.486.2238
Please see our technical rider for specific touring facility requirements.
Gary Peterson, managing director: Gary.Peterson@ananyadancetheater.org
Emma Marlar, production manager: Emma.Marlar@ananyadancetheatre.org
Ananya Chatterjea, artistic director: Ananya.Chatterjea@ananyadancetheatre.org
Not currently available for touring
Horidraa: Golden Healing, 2016
Turmeric, the golden yellow root of South and East Asian cuisine and medicine for centuries, is the dominant metaphor for Horidraa. Organized around the general theme Work Women Do and inspired by indigenous practices across different women’s communities, this original, full-length work connects spiritual practices that balance breath and energy cycles, cultural modes of interactive listening and offering support, and recipes with spices that heal from within with movement and text. We partner with vocalist and herbalist Mankwe Ndosi, Dakota healer Cetanskan BadMoccasin, and theater artist Shá Cage to mine these practices from the domain of women’s work. Horidraa premiered in September 2016 at The O’Shaughnessy, St. Paul.
Full Length (90 minutes); Full Cast (11 performers)
Roktim: Nurture Incarnadine, 2015
Organized around the general theme Work Women Do, Roktim is an interdisciplinary food story that honors the work of women to create a just and sustainable food system. Inspired by the Seed Sovereignty Movement and farming practices in local communities of color, choreographer Ananya Chatterjea, visual artist Seitu Jones, and behavioral artist Marcus Young are partnering with Frogtown Farm, Afro Eco, and the Indigenous Peoples’ Task Force to produce a full-length story reflecting the age-old work of women who cultivate, nurture, and protect land and agriculture with emotional and blood labor.
Full Length (90 minutes); Full Cast (11 performers; plus eight actors and one-to-three drummers from host community)
Neel: Blutopias of Radical Dreaming, 2014
Organized around the general theme Work Women Do, Neel creates a multi-disciplinary immersion in the work and world of women’s dreams, the first in a five-year series of full-length dances exploring the kinds of work undertaken by women around the world to sustain their communities.
Full Length (90 minutes, no intermission); Full Cast (12 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes), Partial Cast (8 performers)
Solo (10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Mohona: Estuaries of Desire, 2013
Mohona is the last work in our four-part investigation into human contact with natural elements (water) and the systemic violence women in global communities of color endure, resist, and survive.
Full Length (90 minutes, no intermission); Full Cast (9-15 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Partial Cast (8 performers)
Solo (10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Trio (10 minutes)
Moreechika: Season of Mirage, 2012
Moreechika is the third work in our four-part investigation into human contact with natural elements (oil) and the systemic violence women in global communities of color endure, resist, and survive.
Full Length (90 minutes); Full Cast (9-11 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes), Partial Cast (8 performers)
Solo (7-10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Duet (10 minutes)
Tushaanal: Fires of Dry Grass, 2011
Tushaanal is the second work in our four-part investigation into human contact with natural elements (oil) and the systemic violence women in global communities of color endure, resist, and survive.
Full Length (90 minutes); Full Cast (11 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes), Partial Cast (8 performers)
Solo (7-10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Solo (10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Kshoy!/Decay! 2010
Kshoy!/Decay! is the first work in our four-part investigation into human contact with natural elements (oil) and the systemic violence women in global communities of color endure, resist, and survive.
Full Length (90 minutes); Full Cast (11 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes), Partial Cast (8 performers)
Solo (7-10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Trio (10 minutes)
Ashesh Barsha: Unending Monsoon, 2009
Full Length (80 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Solo (7-10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Duet (10 minutes)
Daak: Call to Action, 2008
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Solo (10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Quartet (10-15 minutes)
Pipaashaa: Extreme Thirst, 2007
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Solo (10 minutes), Ananya Chatterjea
Duurbaar: Journeys into Horizon, 2006
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Duet (10 minutes)
Bandh: A Meditation on Dream, 2005
Ensemble Excerpt (20-30 minutes); Full Cast (8 performers)
Trio (10 minutes)