BUILDINGCOMMUNITY
2004
ENVIRONMENTALJUSTICE
2006
SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE
2010
2014
INRESPONSE
WORKWOMEN DO
2019
DANCING FUTURITIES
2024
BUILDING COMMUNITY
In our first two years, 2004-2006, Ananya Dance Theatre's artists focused on building a sense of community and trust and investigating why it was so essential to do so. The discussion of that process shaped the foundation of the company's work and set a particular tone for its culture.
What does it mean when women and femmes from global Black and brown communities learn about each other’s histories and participate respectfully in each other’s cultural and artistic practices? How do we dismantle instincts of mistrust and self-preservation at the expense of community, ingrained through years of living inside systemic injustice?
Building Community | Page 1/5
How do we instead build new histories of collaboration and alliance across and with acknowledgement of our differences? Most importantly, how does dancing together enable us to move these questions?Our first two years allowed for reflections about the kind of company and artistic practice we wanted to build. We asked ourselves: What practices must be integral to bridge the divide between professional dance, as defined by the mainstream, and community-building? How can choreography reveal the parallel existence of many narratives? How can we invite activists and organizers to look at our artistic practice as a way of creating change?
Building Community | Page 2/5
How can we practice artistic excellence while remaining inclusive in our philosophy? Together, we confronted the histories that have divided local and global Black, Indigenous, and communities of color without pressure to arrive at a resolution. Danced images, moving from one vision to the next, became our way of asking questions, letting them breathe in the space and become manifest in the new rhythms we created. Coming to breathe together, even as we journeyed through different routes, became an important metaphor for building alliances across difference.
Building Community | Page 3/5
Choreographic principles emerged and became part of our company’s culture as we learned how to build a community that embraces our differences: We celebrate the structural differences of our bodies and identities, and uniform ensemble work sometimes fails to highlight that complexity. We learned how variations on a theme can be articulated with different movements that arrive at the same point, while still respecting our differences. We came to value precision and dancing together without necessarily conforming to dancing sameness.
Building Community | Page 4/5
Our first two years of abstract, non-linear choreographic narratives were built through a dialogic and workshop-based creative process that we described as “mining the richness in the dancers.” This inward focus led us to understand the intense and urgent work of building relationships within our communities and laid the foundation for subsequent years.
BANDh: meditation ona dream (2005)
DUURBAAR: JOURNEYS INTO HORIZON (2006)
Building Community | Page 5/5
environmental justice
In 2006, we embarked on our first multi-year project, turning our focus to a critical look at our location in the world: geo-political, social, and economic with particular reference to the environment.
Conversations with Shalini Gupta, a founding company member now fully focused on environmental work, and her colleague, Cecilia Martinez, led us to research and explore particular environmental hazards in our local communities and how these were replicated on a transnationally on a global scale.
Environmental Justice | Page 1/3
What began as a one-year thematic focus grew into a sustained exploration, resulting in a trilogy of works on environmental justice and a perspective that continues to inform our work through the present. Dialogues and workshops with researchers, activists, and organizers nurtured the creation of this trilogy: the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, Women’s Environmental Institute, and Environmental Justice Advocates for Minnesota. Even as we were overwhelmed by the disastrous consequences of environmental crises, particularly for impoverished communities of color around the world, we found hope in learning about the work being done at grassroots levels by global marginalized communities to urge sustainable solutions.
Environmental Justice | Page 2/3
pipaasha: extreme thirst (2007)
daak: call to action (2008)
ashesh barsha: unending monsoon (2009)
Environmental Justice | Page 3/3
systemic violence
The exploration of environmental injustice led us to a second multi-year project: a quartet of works exploring the ways in which Black and brown women and femmes experience and resist systemic violence.
It felt important not to “domesticate” violence: to see it as only discrete incidents we can blame on an individual. Rather, we wanted to dance about the recurring systemic violence that runs through and rends the histories of women and femmes from global BIPOC communities. We investigated this global theme by tracing the history of four naturally occurring elements: land, gold, oil, and water.
Systemic Violence | Page 1/5
Each of these has been appropriated, mined, or harnessed as capital in ways that have led – directly or indirectly – to horrific violences. Together, the stories of these four elements tell of capitalism's march to commodify natural resources and to destroy habitats and sustainable systems of livelihood.Our research methodology shaped our process in important ways. Most organizations working on gendered violence are forced (by funding priorities and limited resources) to focus on providing direct services. We wanted to broaden the frame and look at how day-to-day gendered violences and sexual assaults were fully built into larger systems of social organization.
Systemic Violence | Page 2/5
Artists researched specific phenomena around violence, bringing their individual perspectives to the creative process and sharpening their identity as “cultural activists.” Our new investigations confirmed what we had learned during the environmental justice trilogy: some of the most courageous resistances are propelled by communities and leaders who are completely marginalized. Our creativity was inspired by stories about the strategic resistance led by women and femmes from global Black, Indigenous and communities of color. This series strengthened our conviction that our dances needed to articulate complex and layered narratives that share the devastation of communities and the little known yet critical responses that come from them.
Systemic Violence | Page 3/5
We sought to inspire our audiences towards the hope that emerges from sharing a struggle and participating in a diverse community of people.For a majority of the quartet, we collaborated with theater artist and writer Laurie Carlos, whose “Theatrical Jazz” aesthetic influenced our creative process, inspiring us to intersect vocalizations, footwork, and movement. We also juxtaposed stories from different contexts, disrupting possibilities of a linear narrative, and highlighting contrasts and resonances amidst the differences.
Systemic Violence | Page 4/5
kshoy!/decay! (2010)
tushaanal: fires of dry grass (2011)
moreechika: season of mirage (2012)
mohona: estuaries of desire (2013)
Systemic Violence | Page 5/5
workwomen do
This theme emerged organically from our research on how women and femmes from global Black, Indigenous and communities of color resist violence and seek social justice.
Our research uncovered little-known yet vital stories, often from the margins of societies, of women/femmes laboring to keep their communities moving toward healing and vibrancy. Often, there is no recognition that this work is, in fact, historic. While the scale of this kind of labor might seem small and local, it often bridges the gap between living and giving up.
Work Women Do | Page 1/4
Our research began with conversations among women and femme leaders from local and global Black and brown communities. These leaders have have taken on extraordinary projects, compelled to act on their beliefs, their commitment to community, and their politics. While their work had been deeply impactful, it had gone largely unnoticed because it was not work that showcased quantifiable results or large-scale policy changes. These works identify stories about this labor, celebrating it through imagined stories of the journeys of women and femmes who, while they may never have known about each other, labored together in our imagination and choreography.
Work Women Do | Page 2/4
And because this specific female/femme labor generally remains unmarked as “work,” this series also redefines the notion of what constitutes labor. The physical, emotional, intellectual, philosophical, and political ways in which women and femmes labor are crucial to sustaining our world.
neel: BLUTOPIAS OF RADICAL DREAMING (2014)
roktim: NURTURE INCARNADINE (2015)
Work Women Do | Page 3/4
horidraa: GOLDEN HEALING (2016)
shyamali: SPROUTING WORDS (2017)
shaatranga:WOMEN WEAVING WORLDS (2018)
Work Women Do | Page 4/4
IN RESPONSE
In Response is a multi-year, multi-dance series of artistic rejoinders to issues of urgency in communities of BIPOC women and femmes.
These works refuse to internalize the toxicity infecting our global politics. Through the Indian concept of maya (magic), we explore black and brown women’s play, dreams, and love. We ask ourselves, “How do we . . .– Show up for each other? – Share visions of embodied beauty? –Catch each other falling?”By creating worlds filled with justice, possibility, and intimacy, which transpose these joyful images into everyday life for brown, black, diasporic artists.
In Response | Page 1/3
This artistic direction responds to the divisive social formations and carceral politics of our times. These works are inspired by changing demographics sweeping through the U.S. and consequent assumptions of power in communities of color; by social justice movements, locally dreamed, globally supported, and often led by marginalized voices; and by the possibility of #occupydance, a cultural commons that imagines justice, joy, and mindful response.
Sutrajāl: revelations of gossamer (2019)
In Response | Page 2/3
dastak: i wish you me (2021)
Nün Gherāo: Surrounded by salt (2022)
michhil amra: we are the procession (2023)
In Response | Page 3/3
dancing futurities
As we approach the threshold of our twentieth year, we see an emerging shift in our focus. For a long time, we have charted the little-known histories of women of color around the world, inspired by ancestors and past events. We now start to imagine new worlds, future worlds, jumping forward from the now.
When the world we need does not yet exist, we can construct that world through rigorous imaginative practice, alongside our design collaborators, applying social justice technologies to manifest a new world for our audiences.
Dancing Futurities | Page 1/2
antaranga: Between you and me (2024)
swapnō Jhnāp: Dream Jumping (2025)
PREM | LOVE : AN OCCUPATION (2026)
Dancing Futurities | Page 2/2
(PUBLISHED) Themes & Responses
KD Bauer
Created on October 31, 2024
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Transcript
BUILDINGCOMMUNITY
2004
ENVIRONMENTALJUSTICE
2006
SYSTEMIC VIOLENCE
2010
2014
INRESPONSE
WORKWOMEN DO
2019
DANCING FUTURITIES
2024
BUILDING COMMUNITY
In our first two years, 2004-2006, Ananya Dance Theatre's artists focused on building a sense of community and trust and investigating why it was so essential to do so. The discussion of that process shaped the foundation of the company's work and set a particular tone for its culture.
What does it mean when women and femmes from global Black and brown communities learn about each other’s histories and participate respectfully in each other’s cultural and artistic practices? How do we dismantle instincts of mistrust and self-preservation at the expense of community, ingrained through years of living inside systemic injustice?
Building Community | Page 1/5
How do we instead build new histories of collaboration and alliance across and with acknowledgement of our differences? Most importantly, how does dancing together enable us to move these questions?Our first two years allowed for reflections about the kind of company and artistic practice we wanted to build. We asked ourselves: What practices must be integral to bridge the divide between professional dance, as defined by the mainstream, and community-building? How can choreography reveal the parallel existence of many narratives? How can we invite activists and organizers to look at our artistic practice as a way of creating change?
Building Community | Page 2/5
How can we practice artistic excellence while remaining inclusive in our philosophy? Together, we confronted the histories that have divided local and global Black, Indigenous, and communities of color without pressure to arrive at a resolution. Danced images, moving from one vision to the next, became our way of asking questions, letting them breathe in the space and become manifest in the new rhythms we created. Coming to breathe together, even as we journeyed through different routes, became an important metaphor for building alliances across difference.
Building Community | Page 3/5
Choreographic principles emerged and became part of our company’s culture as we learned how to build a community that embraces our differences: We celebrate the structural differences of our bodies and identities, and uniform ensemble work sometimes fails to highlight that complexity. We learned how variations on a theme can be articulated with different movements that arrive at the same point, while still respecting our differences. We came to value precision and dancing together without necessarily conforming to dancing sameness.
Building Community | Page 4/5
Our first two years of abstract, non-linear choreographic narratives were built through a dialogic and workshop-based creative process that we described as “mining the richness in the dancers.” This inward focus led us to understand the intense and urgent work of building relationships within our communities and laid the foundation for subsequent years.
BANDh: meditation ona dream (2005)
DUURBAAR: JOURNEYS INTO HORIZON (2006)
Building Community | Page 5/5
environmental justice
In 2006, we embarked on our first multi-year project, turning our focus to a critical look at our location in the world: geo-political, social, and economic with particular reference to the environment.
Conversations with Shalini Gupta, a founding company member now fully focused on environmental work, and her colleague, Cecilia Martinez, led us to research and explore particular environmental hazards in our local communities and how these were replicated on a transnationally on a global scale.
Environmental Justice | Page 1/3
What began as a one-year thematic focus grew into a sustained exploration, resulting in a trilogy of works on environmental justice and a perspective that continues to inform our work through the present. Dialogues and workshops with researchers, activists, and organizers nurtured the creation of this trilogy: the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, Women’s Environmental Institute, and Environmental Justice Advocates for Minnesota. Even as we were overwhelmed by the disastrous consequences of environmental crises, particularly for impoverished communities of color around the world, we found hope in learning about the work being done at grassroots levels by global marginalized communities to urge sustainable solutions.
Environmental Justice | Page 2/3
pipaasha: extreme thirst (2007)
daak: call to action (2008)
ashesh barsha: unending monsoon (2009)
Environmental Justice | Page 3/3
systemic violence
The exploration of environmental injustice led us to a second multi-year project: a quartet of works exploring the ways in which Black and brown women and femmes experience and resist systemic violence.
It felt important not to “domesticate” violence: to see it as only discrete incidents we can blame on an individual. Rather, we wanted to dance about the recurring systemic violence that runs through and rends the histories of women and femmes from global BIPOC communities. We investigated this global theme by tracing the history of four naturally occurring elements: land, gold, oil, and water.
Systemic Violence | Page 1/5
Each of these has been appropriated, mined, or harnessed as capital in ways that have led – directly or indirectly – to horrific violences. Together, the stories of these four elements tell of capitalism's march to commodify natural resources and to destroy habitats and sustainable systems of livelihood.Our research methodology shaped our process in important ways. Most organizations working on gendered violence are forced (by funding priorities and limited resources) to focus on providing direct services. We wanted to broaden the frame and look at how day-to-day gendered violences and sexual assaults were fully built into larger systems of social organization.
Systemic Violence | Page 2/5
Artists researched specific phenomena around violence, bringing their individual perspectives to the creative process and sharpening their identity as “cultural activists.” Our new investigations confirmed what we had learned during the environmental justice trilogy: some of the most courageous resistances are propelled by communities and leaders who are completely marginalized. Our creativity was inspired by stories about the strategic resistance led by women and femmes from global Black, Indigenous and communities of color. This series strengthened our conviction that our dances needed to articulate complex and layered narratives that share the devastation of communities and the little known yet critical responses that come from them.
Systemic Violence | Page 3/5
We sought to inspire our audiences towards the hope that emerges from sharing a struggle and participating in a diverse community of people.For a majority of the quartet, we collaborated with theater artist and writer Laurie Carlos, whose “Theatrical Jazz” aesthetic influenced our creative process, inspiring us to intersect vocalizations, footwork, and movement. We also juxtaposed stories from different contexts, disrupting possibilities of a linear narrative, and highlighting contrasts and resonances amidst the differences.
Systemic Violence | Page 4/5
kshoy!/decay! (2010)
tushaanal: fires of dry grass (2011)
moreechika: season of mirage (2012)
mohona: estuaries of desire (2013)
Systemic Violence | Page 5/5
workwomen do
This theme emerged organically from our research on how women and femmes from global Black, Indigenous and communities of color resist violence and seek social justice.
Our research uncovered little-known yet vital stories, often from the margins of societies, of women/femmes laboring to keep their communities moving toward healing and vibrancy. Often, there is no recognition that this work is, in fact, historic. While the scale of this kind of labor might seem small and local, it often bridges the gap between living and giving up.
Work Women Do | Page 1/4
Our research began with conversations among women and femme leaders from local and global Black and brown communities. These leaders have have taken on extraordinary projects, compelled to act on their beliefs, their commitment to community, and their politics. While their work had been deeply impactful, it had gone largely unnoticed because it was not work that showcased quantifiable results or large-scale policy changes. These works identify stories about this labor, celebrating it through imagined stories of the journeys of women and femmes who, while they may never have known about each other, labored together in our imagination and choreography.
Work Women Do | Page 2/4
And because this specific female/femme labor generally remains unmarked as “work,” this series also redefines the notion of what constitutes labor. The physical, emotional, intellectual, philosophical, and political ways in which women and femmes labor are crucial to sustaining our world.
neel: BLUTOPIAS OF RADICAL DREAMING (2014)
roktim: NURTURE INCARNADINE (2015)
Work Women Do | Page 3/4
horidraa: GOLDEN HEALING (2016)
shyamali: SPROUTING WORDS (2017)
shaatranga:WOMEN WEAVING WORLDS (2018)
Work Women Do | Page 4/4
IN RESPONSE
In Response is a multi-year, multi-dance series of artistic rejoinders to issues of urgency in communities of BIPOC women and femmes.
These works refuse to internalize the toxicity infecting our global politics. Through the Indian concept of maya (magic), we explore black and brown women’s play, dreams, and love. We ask ourselves, “How do we . . .– Show up for each other? – Share visions of embodied beauty? –Catch each other falling?”By creating worlds filled with justice, possibility, and intimacy, which transpose these joyful images into everyday life for brown, black, diasporic artists.
In Response | Page 1/3
This artistic direction responds to the divisive social formations and carceral politics of our times. These works are inspired by changing demographics sweeping through the U.S. and consequent assumptions of power in communities of color; by social justice movements, locally dreamed, globally supported, and often led by marginalized voices; and by the possibility of #occupydance, a cultural commons that imagines justice, joy, and mindful response.
Sutrajāl: revelations of gossamer (2019)
In Response | Page 2/3
dastak: i wish you me (2021)
Nün Gherāo: Surrounded by salt (2022)
michhil amra: we are the procession (2023)
In Response | Page 3/3
dancing futurities
As we approach the threshold of our twentieth year, we see an emerging shift in our focus. For a long time, we have charted the little-known histories of women of color around the world, inspired by ancestors and past events. We now start to imagine new worlds, future worlds, jumping forward from the now.
When the world we need does not yet exist, we can construct that world through rigorous imaginative practice, alongside our design collaborators, applying social justice technologies to manifest a new world for our audiences.
Dancing Futurities | Page 1/2
antaranga: Between you and me (2024)
swapnō Jhnāp: Dream Jumping (2025)
PREM | LOVE : AN OCCUPATION (2026)
Dancing Futurities | Page 2/2