Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is an ensemble company of BIPOC women and femme professional dance artists who create and present 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 and femmes from the global majority. 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 St. Paul, Minnesota on University Avenue, at the confluence of the vibrant neighborhoods of Frogtown, Little Africa, and Historic Rondo.

Our performance home (since 2013) has been the O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota: initially, as part of their Women of Substance series (now sunsetted); now as a member of the O’Shaughnessy Dance Cohort.

ADT has performed at the Cowles Center for Dance, the Southern Theater, and 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.

ON TOUR

On tour, ADT has performed, offered engagements, and participated in developmental residencies across all regions of the U.S. and internationally, connecting with communities by dancing stories of struggles, triumphs, and transformations.

    • 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.

We will celebrate our 20th season in 2025.