Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is an ensemble company of TRAnsnational feminist professional dance artists who create and perform social justice choreography.

What We Do

We have premiered one ~80-minute original work with commissioned score annually since 2005. Each work is conceptualized and created by our Artistic Director, developed in collaboration with guest artists and designers (music and sound composition, spoken word, and lighting, scenic, and costume design), and grown to its full realization through the rigorous practice of company dancers.

Our practice is expressed through four primary streams, nourishing deep local roots with wide-reaching branches: 

  1. Annual theatrical premiere of an evening-length original dance theater ensemble work; 

  2. Workshops, dialogues to build solidarities and healing, and multi-level movement classes; 

  3. Participatory public art gatherings that invite audiences to embody possibilities of moving together, negotiating space, finding rhythm, and sharing humanity with people they might not know; and 

  4. Artist mentorship, including our NextGen Choreolab, which annually supports a small group of artists in the development of their choreographic processes. 

Our work electrifies the intersectional frontiers of artistic excellence, social justice, and community-embedded practice, inspired by the lives and dreams of BIPOC women/femmes from around the globe. We work to shift the landscape of mainstream culture and to empower diverse stories.

OUR HOME

The Shawngrām Institute
for Performance & Social Justice

Our company’s home since 2018, the Shawngrām Institute is located in the place now called St. Paul, Minnesota on University Avenue, at the confluence of the vibrant neighborhoods of Frogtown, Little Africa, Hamline-Midway, and Historic Rondo.

Between 2013 and 2025, we found a performance home at the O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota: initially, as part of their Women of Substance series, then as a member of the O’Shaughnessy Dance Cohort (both now sunsetted).

ADT has offered many excerpted performances and residencies in venues and schools around the Twin Cities and in greater Minnesota. In 2015, ADT was commissioned to create an original, full-length work for the opening of the Ordway Center’s Concert Hall. In 2026, ADT will return to the Southern Theater, our cherished early home.

Performance photo of Ananya Chatterjea. She stands on one leg with knee bent, leaning forward, arms outstretched with clawlike hands. Her other leg extends behind her, knee bent at sharp angle. Her mouth and eyes are open wide.

ON TOUR

On tour, ADT has toured across the world, connecting with communities by dancing stories of struggle, triumph, and transformation.

    • Jacob’s Pillow (MA)

    • Kelly Strayhorn Theater (PA)

    • Dance Place (Wash D.C.)

    • Bates College/Bates Dance Festival (ME)

    • Skirball Cultural Center (CA)

    • John Michael Kohler Arts Center (WI)

    • Links Hall (Chicago)

    • Virginia Commonwealth University (VA)

    • Maui Arts & Cultural Center (HI)

    • Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (FL)

    • Utah Presents! (UT)

    • Harare International Festival of the Arts (Zimbabwe)

    • New Waves! Institute of the International Choreographers Commission Program (Trinidad and Tobago)

    • Bethlehem International Performing Arts Festival (Palestinian Territories)

    • Aavejak Aavaaz Festival and Natya Ballet Dance Festival (Delhi, India)

    • Pragiyoti International Dance Festival (Assam, India)

    • Ocean Dance Festival of the World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific (Bangladesh)

    • Crossing Boundaries Festival (Ethiopia) supported by the U.S. Department of State.

awards & recognition

In 2021, ADT was named a Regional Cultural Treasure through a joint initiative of the McKnight, Ford, Bush, and Jerome Foundations.

Honors awarded to ADT and our artists include:

MAJOR GRANTS & COMMISSIONS