Repertoire

All works are conceived and choreographed by Ananya Chatterjea.

Exploration

2005, company, 90 minutes
Score: Shubha Mudgal & Aneesh Pradhan
Premiere: Southern Theater, Minneapolis
A journey into a state of being where we are able to focus on the desires, hopes, and aspirations that sustain life.

Visphot

2003, duet, 35 mins
Score: shubha mudgal & aneesh pradhan in collaboration with futuresonic
Premiere: Philippines Cultural Center, Manila.
Visphot means explosion, which can also allow for future fertility and creativity.

Pallavi

2003, solo, 11 minutes
Score: Shubha Mudgal & Aneesh Pradhan in collaboration with Futuresonic.
Premiere: Southern Theater, Minneapolis. Commissioned by Walker Arts Center and Southern Theater's Momentum series.
Pallavi literally means "blossoming," and is a traditional part of the Odissi repertoire in which increasingly complex rhythmic and movement patterns unfold. Here, Pallavi is reimagined as the explosive unleashing of a woman's consciousness.

2003, created and performed in collaboration with Hari Krishnan, 30 minutes
Score: Peter Chin
Premiere: Harborfront Theater, Toronto, Canada
Inspired by Tantric interpretations of gender ideology culled from 9th century Sanskrit sources, this piece investigates the masculine and feminine through the personal voices and experiences of its creators.

Encounters

2002, created and performed in collaboration with Thomas De Frantz, 22 minutes
Score: Akili Jamal Haynes
Premiere: Kresge Theater, Boston
A search to build alliances while respecting different cultural histories and traditions.

Making Rain

2002, solo, 17 minutes
Score: Reshma (traditional Sufi)
Premiere: Habitat Center, Delhi
A response to state-sponsored violence and the community's journey toward peace.

Women of Lost Homes

2002, solo, 14 minutes
Score: Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, performed by Meena Natarajan
Premiere: Sutra Dance Theater, Kuala Lampur
Inspired by the mothers of Kashmir searching for their missing children, and by mothers everywhere who have lost so much.

In Search of Sringara

Awakenings

2001, company, 1 hour 45 minutes
Score: Nirmala Rajashekar, Manjunan Gnanaratnam and poetry by Jigna Desai
Premiere: Barker Performance Space, Minneapolis
Sparked off by a suicide note left by a young woman who suffered much domestic abuse.

Pataka

2000, company, 9 minutes
Score: Poetry by Sonia Sanchez
Premiere: Ted Mann Hall, Minneapolis. For the opening of the National Teleconference for Women In Higher Education.
A signature piece, fireworks of rhythms in counterpoint.

From Sita: lament, fury, and a plea for peace

1998, solo, 25 minutes
Altschul Auditorium, NYC
A revisioning of Sita, the central female figure of the Indian epic the Ramayana, to raise an urgent plea to find the peace and resist violence.

Unheard Testimonies

1998, company, 40 minutes
Text: from Nampally Road and Mosquitoes in the Main Room by Meena Alexander
Music: I'll Stay on the Battlefield (with poetry written and performed by Sonia Sanchez) and Mystic Oceans by Sweet Honey in the Rock
Premiere: Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA
This piece remembers how Rameeza Bi, a working-class Muslim woman, was gang-raped by a group of policemen and left to die in the police station in Hyderabad, India, in 1978.

Bhairavi

Unable to Remember Roop Kanwar

1996, company, 45 minutes
Alaap composed and sung by Rashmi Singh
Visual material created by Shashwati Talukdar
Poem: Whack! the sun slapped the sky ! Composed originally in Bengali by Suman Chatterji, and translated into English by Sudipto Chatterji
Premiere: Museum of Natural History Auditorium, NYC
Roop Kanwar was burned to her death on her husband's funeral pyre on September 1987 in Rajasthan, India. This piece remembers this incident, raises questions about general lack of knowledge about what really happened, and on the activism of the countless women who risked much to say "NO!" to this crime.

1994, created and performed in collaboration with Joseph Mills, 19 minutes
Premiere: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Desh Pardesh Int'l Festival, Toronto, Canada.
Explores the politics of power and sexuality in a cross-cultural relationship.

Bangles and Braids

1994, solo, 7 minutes
Poetry: Kimmika Williams Witherspoon
Premiere: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Desh Pardesh Int'l Festival, Toronto, Canada
Based on Witherspoon's poem, Braiding , this piece celebrates the legacies created and passed down through generations of women in different cultures.

Kali for Women

1993, duet, 14 minutes
Premiere: Choreographic showing, U. Penn Theater, Philadelphia.
Inspired by images of Kali, the Hindu goddess of female power and sexuality, in terms of contemporary womanhood.

Draupadi

1992, solo, 20 minutes
Premiere: Conwell Theatre, Philadelphia.
A revisioning of the story of Draupadi, the central female figure in the Indian epic the Mahabharata, from a feminist perspective.

Upcoming Events