Minneapolis-based Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is more than just a dance troupe. The company, founded by Ananya Chatterjea in 2004 as a community-based ensemble, aims to be part of the global social justice movement, and particularly strives to engage audiences in directing power to women, LBGTQIA+ people, and people of color.
Although ADT has not yet had the opportunity to perform in the Seattle area, it is seeking out local connections, and has published a book Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice through the University of Washington Press.
“We look for presenter-partners constantly, and we have to find a partner whose mission and capacity align with ours so that we can apply for grants together,” Chatterjea said. “This is always a challenging process because the power relationship between presenters and artists, particularly BIPOC artists and artists working in social justice, is historically skewed.”
Dancing Transnational Feminisms is a collection of essays, stories, interviews, and poems, edited by Chatterjea, along with Hui Niu Wilcox and Alessandra Lebea Williams. In Chatterjea’s own essay “Historical Ruminations,” she mentions Sophie Liu’s comment that “Asian women always get left behind because of their accents.”
Explaining this comment, Chatterjea notes that she is South Asian, and that ADT’s own Kealoha Ferreira, is both Asian American and Indigenous. “We work in a contemporary movement language I created, Yorchhā, which interweaves movement principles from South Asian movement practices,” Chatterjea said. “It is important to note that my discursive creative process ensures that different voices are heard throughout the process.”
In the book, editor Alessandra Lebea Williams writes in “Loving Deeply,” the work of avant-garde performance artist Laurie Carlos and ADT’s website mentions their strategy of #occupydance, the movement of dancing as civic action. “This notion of movement as civic engagement reaches audiences through emotional commitment,” said Gina Kundan, ADT’s board president. “It touches hearts and minds in ways that data and statistics cannot.”
Kundan also asserted that ADT’s work shows audiences pathways and possibilities for self-awareness, helping individuals recognize how they can influence change.
Ferreira is honored to contribute to this mission. She brought teaching skills to ADT and then began to develop leadership, explaining that it was a natural fit to focus on developing class programing for their new space, the Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice, creating relationships with neighborhing high schools and community organizations.
“With the lockdown came the need for more help in the creative and rehearsal process, and while responding to the financial, social, and political upheavals of the pandemic and uprising, those managerial skills started to emerge,” said Ferreira.
Adapting to the changing COVID-19 pandemic was key. “By mirroring those changes in our Shawngram Institute programming, we were able to not only expand our offerings but engage relationships that we had built outside of Minnesota,” said Ferreira. “Becoming proficient at this hybrid practice and mentality both strengthened our capacity for involvement and provided a different model through which we could invite BIPOC artists that we have always wanted to work with but lacked the resources or ability to do so.”
ADT’s artistic circle is now growing by eight, with three artists relocating to the Twin Cities, and two others joining the administrative team. In addition, ADT invites others to get involved as dancers, board members, or organizers, and to share in the company’s work “with transnational communities to interweave dance with stories of justice.”
Chatterjea described several ways in which the public can continue to engage in interaction. “We produce one fully devised evening-length work every year and look to tour it,” she said. “Most of these shows invite audiences to respond during the show in some fashion. Sometimes audiences are invited to sit on stage, and join dancers with gestures and spoken words.”
Through public art performance installations, processional dancers often invite audiences to join in through song and dance. “During such interactions, stories are inevitably exchanged, and relationships created,” said Chatterjea. “Story circles are also part of our creative process and much emerges as share our tears, our memories, our dreams for safe space.”
And Seattle-area participants have options to share in the work. “While most of these are in-person activities, we have created virtual counterparts to several of these,” Chatterjea said. “The classes we offer, workshops, summer intensives, and many events are shared virtually, inviting in others across different geographies.”
