Ananya Dance Theatre

Founded by Ananya Chatterjea in 2004, Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is a St. Paul-based ensemble of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) women/femme professional dance artists who create original contemporary dance theater, upholding artistic excellence in social justice choreography. ADT was named a Regional Cultural Treasure in 2021 by a joint initiative of the Ford McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations.

As choreographer, dancer, and thinker, Chatterjea brings together contemporary dance, social justice choreography, and a commitment to healing justice. She is the creator of Yorchhā, ADT’s signature movement vocabulary, and is the primary architect of Shawngrām, the company’s justice- and community-oriented choreographic methodology. Chatterjea is a 2011 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, a 2012 and 2021 McKnight Choreography Fellow, a 2016 Joyce Award recipient, a 2018 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, a 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow, and recipient of the 2021 A. P. Andersen Award. Her work has toured to international venues such as the Bethlehem International Performing Arts Festival, Palestine (2018), Crossing Boundaries Festival, Ethiopia, (2015), Harare International Dance Festival, Zimbabwe (2013), New Waves Institute of Dance and Performance, Trinidad (2012), and Aavejak Avaaz Festival, India (2018), and to such venues as Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan (Shaatranga: Women Weaving Worlds, 2019); Dance Place, Washington; Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Maui; The Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; Painted Bride Theater, Philadelphia; among others. Chatterjea is Professor of Dance at the University of Minnesota where she teaches courses in Dance Studies and contemporary practice.

Her second book, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance: South-South Choreographies (Palgrave McMillan, 2020), which reframes understandings of contemporary dance from the perspective of dance-makers from global south locations, was awarded the 2022 Brockett Book Prize by Dance Studies Association. Her most recent publication is an anthology, Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice (Univ. of Washington Press, 2022), co-edited with Hui Wilcox and Alessandra Williams.