March 9, 2021

University names Chatterjea as McMurrin Distinguished Visiting Professor

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, March 9, 2021–UtahPresents and the Office of Undergraduate Studies are pleased to announce that Dr. Ananya Chatterjea has been named the University of Utah’s Sterling M. McMurrin Distinguished Visiting Professor. 

Dr. Chatterjea is the founding artistic director of Ananya Dance Theatre and a Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches courses in Dance Studies and technique.

The McMurrin Professorship

The McMurrin Professorship brings to the University a scholar of recognized eminence in his or her field. The purpose of this endowed chair is to raise the level of campus discourse and enrich undergraduate education in cooperation with a selected college or department each year. McMurrin Professors are expected to offer one or two public events and to be available to meet with undergraduate students and faculty.

The Residency 

Residency events with Dr. Chatterjea at the University of Utah include the Women’s Week Health & Wellness Workshop on March 12, 2021, at 10am MT. Dr. Chatterjea will also participate in the Gender-Based Violence Consortium’s Symposium (GBVC) on April 16, 2021, at 10am MT. Additionally, she is guiding Utah-based dance artists in a series of workshops to reconsider their creative practice. 

These events are an exciting precursor to Ananya Dance Theatre’s presentation of Dastak at Kingsbury Hall in February 2022. Historic journeys laden with hope, heart-break, and pain spark Dastak: stories of families torn apart, women assaulted and abandoned, and children tortured and lost during the partition of India in 1947, and again, with the recent escalation of violence along the India-Pakistan border, the current crisis around immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, and the 150-mile forced march of Dakota people in 1862. Ultimately, Dastak becomes a meditation on footwork, migrations, and home through the contact of dancers’ feet with the floor and our ability to share rhythm and movement.

In addition to the performance at Kingsbury Hall, Dr. Chatterjea and the artists-activists of Ananya Dance Theatre will lead further residency activities at the University of Utah. 

Dr. Chatterjea’s Biography

Ananya Chatterjea is a 2011 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, a 2012 McKnight Choreography Fellow, a 2016 Joyce Award recipient, a 2018 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, and a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow. Ananya is Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches courses in Dance Studies and technique. She just published her second book, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance: South-South Choreographies, re-framing understandings of Contemporary Dance from the perspective of dance-makers from global south locations.