People

*artist for 2025 premiere SWAPNŌ JHNĀP: Dream jumping

dancers

*ananya Chatterjea

Founder (2004), Artistic Director
Choreographer, Dancer

  • Ananya Chatterjea’s (she/her) work as choreographer, dancer, and thinker 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 meth-odology. She 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 prestigious domes-tic venues such as Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboy-gan; Dance Place, Washington; Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Maui; The Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; Painted Bride Theater, Philadelphia; among others. Ananya 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 Choreo-graphies, re-framing understandings of Contemporary Dance from the perspective of dance-makers from global south locations (Palgrave McMillan, 2020) 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. Ananya is grateful to all the artists and collaborators she works with for their light and practice of excellence, and is thankful to her family for their support.

*Kealoha Ferreira

Artistic Associate, Dancer, Instructor
2013-Present

  • Kealoha Ferreira (she/her) is a Kanaka Maoli, Filipino, Chinese dance artist from Nuʻuanu, Oʻahu . She began her performing and teach-ing career with Ananya Dance Theatre in 2013, becom-ing the Artistic Associate and a Co-Leader of the Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice in 2018. A practitioner of Yorchhā, and an emerging student of Oli, Kūahu and Hula, Kealoha works at the intersection of these transnational feminist and aloha ʻāina embodied practices to create space, classes, and performances that dig into the tensious and expansive nature of relationality while remaining rooted in cultural and kinesthetic specificity. Her journey in reclaiming ʻike kupuna and nā mea Hawaiʻi is sustained by a collective of diasporic Kanaka Maoli based in Minne-sota, Iowa, Texas, New York, and Hawaiʻi. She is grateful to deepen her learning through the Lonoa Honua programming led by Kekuhi Kanahele Kanakaʻole. Kealoha mahalos the people, lands, and waters (chosen and ancestral) that teach her daily to dance with aloha and complex solidarity.

Alexandra Eady

Dancer, 2011-2014, 2017-2023;
Summer Intensive Instructor

  • Alexandra Eady (she/her) entered into the space of Ananya Dance Theatre at age 16. ADT’s commitment to social justice and intentional choreographic creations fuel her onstage performances. Alexandra was a member of the 2022-23 cohort of ADT’s NextGen Choreolab; the work she began in that program, “Wave,” premiered in full at the Southern Theater in June 2024, as part of their Performance Partnership program. Alexandra is co-chair of the dance department at St Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, a charter high school. In 2020, she was a collaborator in residence led by Ananya Chatterjea at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, and is a 2021 McKnight Dancer Fellow. Alexandra is committed to performing works that are grounded in narrative and story that do not leave behind ancestral guidance. She works to bring her communities with her and performs in honor of those who have come before, the ones that are witnessing, and for future generations. She is incredibly thankful for her wonderful mentors, teachers, students, friends, family and, most significantly, her parents and sister who give her endless energy and light.

dr. alessandra Lebea williams

Dancer, 2007-2021

  • Alessandra Lebea Williams, PhD, is a dancer and scholar who is assistant professor of dance at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. From 2018-2019, Williams served as Inclusive Excellence Fellow in Women’s and Gender Studies and Theatre and Dance at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. As Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellow, Williams earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Culture and Performance at UCLA and through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, finished the B.A. with honors in American Studies and Dance at Macalester College.  Originally from Minneapolis, Williams’ work as a community organizer led to receiving the 2010 Minnesota Grassroots Solutions Organizer of the Year Award.

    Having joined the Minneapolis-based Ananya Dance Theatre to be immersed in the company’s Yorchhā technique in 2006, Williams has performed in Dastak (2021), Sutrajāl (2019), Shaatranga (2018), Shyamali (2017), Horidraa (2016), Roktim (2015), Moreechika (2012), Ashesh Barsha (2009), and Pipaashaa (2007). Alongside Ananya Chatterjea and Hui Wilcox, Williams is co-editor of their anthology Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice.

Hui Wilcox

Dancer 2004-2020

  • Hui Niu Wilcox, Ph.D., has been moving and thinking with Ananya Dance Theatre since 2004. She is the Dean of the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College. She was a Professor and Chair of Sociology at St. Catherine University from 2011-2023. Hui is grateful for the privilege of engaging in activism through dance, and for the loving support of her family and friends, especially Elliot, Claire, and Lynn. Hui is co-editor, with Ananya Chatterjea and Alessandra Lebea Williams, of the anthology Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice (University of Washington Press 2021).

Orlando Hunter

Dancer 2012-2013, 2019, 2023

  • Orlando Zane Hunter,Jr. is an international artist, who has performed in Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe, Africa with Ananya Chatterjea. He has received a B.F.A.  in dance from the University of Minnesota. Recently he choreographed and danced in "Redbone: A Biomythography" that debuted at the Nuyorican Café, Wild Project Theater and Duke University: Women’s center. Orlando Hunter's solo, Mutiny, was selected in the 2015 Dancing While Black performance lab in Trinidad and Tobago. He has presented his choreography at Thelma Hill and on Time Warner cable network through Germaul Barnes’s project, Black Bones. Orlando has performed works by Christal Brown, Edisa Weeks, Germaul Barnes, Andre Zachary/ Renegade Performance Group, Forces of Nature and Ni’Ja Whitson-Adebanjo/NWA project.   In addition, he is the co-founder of Brother(hood) Dance and 2015/16 Dancing While Black Fellow.

*noelle awadallah

Dancer, 2019-Present

  • Noelle Awadallah نوال  is a Palestinian-American improviser, performer, and dance maker who resides in Mni Sota. She graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2018 with a BFA in dance. She joined Ananya Dance Theatre in 2019 and since has been fueled by the company’s unwavering dedication to social justice issues and storytelling. Her personal work circles themes of transcendence of time, ancestor imaginings, listening, metaphor, falling into stereotypes, mysticism, and storytelling. Constantly curious, she is currently investigating future-ness through acknowledgement of the past. She is honored and humbled to share the stage with the ADT ensemble and collaborators.

parisha rajbhandari

Dancer 2020-Present

  • Parisha Rajbhandari (she/her) is a Newari-Nepali dance artist residing in Mni Sota. Parisha explores movement through her Newa identity interconnected with multiple folk-dance traditions in Nepal. She grew up immersed in social dances and continues to participate and learn through the social dance community in the Twin Cities. She received her BA in dance from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2020, and is furthering her academic career through an MFA in Dance at MSU, Mankato. She joined Ananya Dance Theatre in 2019. Parisha continues to deepen her study in Yorchhā and is ever inspired by ADT leaders, collaborators, and the ensemble work.

*Juliet Irving

Dancer 2023-Present

  • Juliet Irving is a Black, femme multimedia artist, graphic designer, and choreographer hailing from Monetta, South Carolina now residing in Mni Sota. She is drawn to the ancestral rootedness and immersion in social justice practices that Ananya Dance Theatre centers themselves within and is honored to join the company as an ensemble member in 2023. Juliet, otherwise known as Sonny or JuJu, is invested in cultivating radical imagination alongside identity formation in rural BIPOC communities, and is currently exploring grooving and social dances in relation to intergenerational trauma of the self and environment. Juliet’s multidisciplinary practice originates from a childhood spent choreographing dances with her sister and performing for a dedicated audience of cows that evolved into a collaborative practice of immersing audiences and performers into worlds of possibility integrating environmental installation, improvisation, and audience interaction.

    Juliet earned her MFA in Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis and a Master’s Certificate in African & African-American Studies from Duke University, along with a BA in Dance Studies and BFA in Graphic Design from Appalachian State University. Juliet has performed in work choreographed by Joanna Kotze, Sherone Price, and Dante Brown as well as presented work at the ADF Creative Healing Parade, the International Conference on Movement and Computing, and the Collegium of African Diaspora Dance. She invites collaborations, daydreams, and imaginings, and her work can be viewed at julietirving.com.

Kavya Kaviraj

Dancer, 2023-Present

  • Kavya Kaviraj is a multi-stylistic dancer embarking on an exploration of movement. Born to Indian parents, residing as immigrants in Oman, Kavya was fortunate to inherit a rich musical and cultural heritage that runs in the family. Kavya began dancing at 2, and has been trained in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi for 14 years. She grew to be an impassioned performer, actively involved in several local and national performances since she was a toddler, and has won awards and accolades within the inter-school arts competitions in Oman.

    Kavya is an incoming student at the BFA program at the University of Minnesota. She is most excited about being a company member at the Ananya Dance Theatre, and is enthusiastic about being part of ADT’s upcoming shows and events. Outside of dance, she is also an aspiring violinist training in Indian and classical styles, and likes to paint, and watch cat videos.

    Kavya hopes to have a fruitful interdisciplinary career merging the worlds she is involved with, to be an artist in a more excellent way.

lizzette Chapa

Dancer 2017-Present

  • Lizzette Chapa (she/her) is a Mexican-American dancer and dance maker originally from The Rio Grande Valley, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Dance in 2017. She is deeply drawn to ADT’s commitment to social justice issues, radical healing, and ancestral guidance. She is a movement instructor in the Twin Cities, utilizing the principles of Yorchhā and Pilates to deepen one’s connection to self and mind body engagement. In 2020, she was a collaborator in residence led by Ananya Chatterjea at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. She is incredibly grateful for her mentors, teachers, students, ancestors, family and, most importantly, her parents and brother for their endless support and love.

alexis ariminta reneé

Dancer 2021-2023

  • Alexis Araminta Reneé, affectionately referred to as Aloka, is a multiethnic Black and Brown identified visual artist, scholar, performer, choreographer and conjure woman bridging the divides between community healer, concert dance, theater, and film. Alexis creates interdisciplinary work that centers ritual, healing and social justice as  transformative liberation practices. She has studied, performed, and presented work throughout the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States, and is the artistic director of Masala Soul Project, a multicultural dance and theater company dedicated to telling the untold stories of marginalized communities. In response to the 2020 Global Uprising, she co-founded Get Dis War Dance, a collaborative project and call to action that frames Black Diaspora dancing traditions as resistance strategies. Alexis is a 2014 American College Dance Association Choreography Award winner, a 2017 Ruby Artist Grant Recipient, a Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Observership Fellow, a Street Dance Activism facilitator, and a founding member of Chesapeake Conjure Society. This is Alexis’ first season with Ananya Dance Theatre and she is humbled to be a student of Yorchhā and deeply honored to hold these complex ancestral stories with love.

*mariadella belle alvarez

Dancer 2023-Present

  • Mariadela Belle Alvarez (she/they/ella) is a Central American dance artist born in Honduras. She joined Ananya Dance Theatre in 2023, and previously trained through the Shawngram Institute’s Next Generation Platform in 2021. She is a dancer, capoeirista, and teaching artist utilizing Afro Latin arts & culture, theatrical performance, and social dance traditions to access individual resiliency and build collective liberation. In 2017, she was a BrideNext Artist in Residence at the Painted Bride Art Center. In 2022, she was an actor with Teatro Del Pueblo and an Artist in Residence at Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts. She earned her BFA in Dance from Temple University. She is distinctly drawn to Ananya Dance Theatre’s theatrically rich, choreographically riveting work which activates modalities of performance, pedagogy, and community organizing to illuminate the local, global, and interconnected issues that BIPOC communities face, while uplifting the strength and spirit of nuestra lucha, our shared struggle towards justice. She sees ensemble work as an opportunity to shape culture by facilitating exchange within dance, music, and movement arts as a means to heal, rejoice, envision, and shift towards collective action.

laichee Yang

Dancer, 2018-2023
Visual/Props Designer, 2023

  • Laichee Yang is a Hmong-American, multi-disciplinary designer and artist who makes drawings, graphics, interactive installations, and photographs for digital and physical spaces. She is honored to have worked with organizations that include Ananya Dance Theatre, Indigenous Roots, Brownbody, and Fendika Cultural Center. Laichee is currently a master of architecture student at the University of Minnesota. Supported by the Wigington Architectural Scholarship, her research is focused on the intersections of equity, social justice, and professional excellence in the field of architecture. Laichee works as an Architectural Designer for Miller Dunwiddie. She holds endless gratitude for her partner, Ethan, and chosen village of mentors, healers, family, and members of Ananya Dance Theatre. 

erica josefina vibar sherwood

Dancer, 2021, 2024

  • Erica Josefina Vibar Sherwood (they/them) is a queer midwest Mexiciliana (mixed Mexican and Sicilian American) with several generations of connection to Mnisota Makoce. A community trained dance artist, Erica Jo’s movement is shaped by the teachings of Mexica-Nahuatl Danza (Kalpulli Huitzillin), the House and Street Dance scene of the Twin Cities and Ananya Dance Theatre. They are also a touring company member with Body Watani Dance Project. Erica Jo’s artistry is a practice of steadfastness, relationality, ancestral wisdoms and manifested futurisms. Erica Jo is grateful to return again and again to the dedicated work of Ananya Dance Theatre.

*vy nguyen

Dancer, 2025

  • Vy Nguyen (they/she) is a Vietnamese-born dance artist based in Mni Sota. They are most interested in utilizing dance and the corporeal body as a form of language to strengthen their connection to others and deepen their understanding of the various landscapes that birthed and raised them. Vy is committed to conjuring liberated spaces through deep softness, internal and external investigation, and hours of movement in collectivity.


    They hold a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota where they became a student of Dr. Ananya Chatterjea. There they trained extensively in modern and contemporary dance forms. Vy has performed in works by BrotherHood dance (Orlando Zane Hunter Jr. and Riccardo Valentine), BRKFST dance, Taja Will, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Maria Bauman, and Alexandra Eady.

    Vy also indulges in solo and collaborative creation. Fascinated by the multitudes of artistic processes, they are devoted to deepening their roots with other BIPOC and queer artists in her community. They directed and lead movement of their short screen dance film 'RE: synthesis', screened at ArtShelf MPLS in 2024. Most recently, Vy co-choreographed and performed with artist Ella Kooyer at the 52nd Annual Choreographer’s Evening at the Walker Art Center curated by jess pretty. 

*zhané “tenacity” jackson

Dancer, 2025

  • Zhané Jackson is an experienced dancer, choreographer, instructor, and community organizer/advocate based in the Twin Cities. Her career began as a founding member of New Black City—a Hip Hop dance collective established in 2016 dedicated to preserving cultural heritage and fostering community through performance. Over the years, she has collaborated with groups like Al’Tawam and contributed to projects such as MIXTAPE at The Cowles, engaging with diverse artistic voices and broadening her creative practice.

    Alongside her collective work, Zhané has cultivated a distinctive personal style that blends Hip Hop with Contemporary influences. Her commitment to both performance and education has led her to work with institutions including Hothouse MPLS, House of Dance, and SPCPA, where she has helped develop inclusive dance initiatives for learners of all ages.

    In recent years, freestyle dance has emerged as a significant aspect of her artistic evolution. Battling under the name TENACITY, she has made a mark in the competitive freestyle scene, specializing in both Hip Hop and House. This dynamic practice allows her to explore improvisational movement and push technical boundaries, continuously informing her choreographic work and performance style. More recently, Zhané’s evolution as a dancer has been further enriched by her involvement as a company member of Ananya Dance Theatre.

    Alongside these endeavors, Zhané has launched initiatives like The New Skool—a free Hip Hop dance intensive aimed at supporting BIPOC femme dancers—and established Discover Your Mode, a program dedicated to building a connected dance community through workshops, panels, and community gatherings. Looking ahead, she is preparing for her upcoming evening-length show, Divine Intervention, scheduled to premiere at the Southern Theatre in early 2026, marking the latest chapter in her ongoing artistic journey!

*davente gilreath

Dancer, 2025

  • Davente Gilreath was born and raised in Minneapolis. His dance training began at Perpich Center for Arts Education where he was exposed to styles of dance including modern, ballet, jazz, African, and contact improvisation. Gilreath furthered his dance training at the University of Minnesota where he worked with professors such as Ananya Chatterjea, Erin Thompson, and Toni Pierce‐Sands. During this time he was also able to perform and create work with Minnesota‐based companies such as Threads Dance Project and Contempo Physical Dance (with Marciano Silva dos Santos). Gilreath Joined Garth Fagan Dance in 2014 and during his 8 years with the company performed numerous key works from the Fagan cannon around the country including new works choreographed by PJ Pennewell the company director. He was promoted to senior company member and appointed the Director of the Garth Fagan Dance Student Ensemble. He also taught Intermediate/Advanced Fagan Technique for the Garth Fagan Dance School and for the Garth Fagan Summer Movement Institute. Gilreath is now a dance instructor at The University of Minnesota where he teaches Contemporary, African Diasporic Movement and Jazz. In the last 3 years since returning to Minneapolis he has danced for choreographers Joe Chvala, Darrius Strong, and has just joined Ananya Dance Theatre. He has set choreography for senior students at TU Dance, Perpich Center for Arts Education (2023) and in his own solo work “Rumination” (which premiered in Choreographers' Evening, Walker Art Center, Nov 2024).

staff

*ananya Chatterjea

Founder (2004), Artistic Director
Choreographer, Dancer

  • Ananya Chatterjea’s (she/her) work as choreographer, dancer, and thinker 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 meth-odology. She 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 prestigious domes-tic venues such as Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboy-gan; Dance Place, Washington; Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Maui; The Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles; Painted Bride Theater, Philadelphia; among others. Ananya 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 Choreo-graphies, re-framing understandings of Contemporary Dance from the perspective of dance-makers from global south locations (Palgrave McMillan, 2020) 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. Ananya is grateful to all the artists and collaborators she works with for their light and practice of excellence, and is thankful to her family for their support.

*Kealoha Ferreira

Artistic Associate, Dancer, Instructor
2013-Present

  • Kealoha Ferreira (she/her) is a Kanaka Maoli, Filipino, Chinese dance artist from Nuʻuanu, Oʻahu . She began her performing and teach-ing career with Ananya Dance Theatre in 2013, becom-ing the Artistic Associate and a Co-Leader of the Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice in 2018. A practitioner of Yorchhā, and an emerging student of Oli, Kūahu and Hula, Kealoha works at the intersection of these transnational feminist and aloha ʻāina embodied practices to create space, classes, and performances that dig into the tensious and expansive nature of relationality while remaining rooted in cultural and kinesthetic specificity. Her journey in reclaiming ʻike kupuna and nā mea Hawaiʻi is sustained by a collective of diasporic Kanaka Maoli based in Minne-sota, Iowa, Texas, New York, and Hawaiʻi. She is grateful to deepen her learning through the Lonoa Honua programming led by Kekuhi Kanahele Kanakaʻole. Kealoha mahalos the people, lands, and waters (chosen and ancestral) that teach her daily to dance with aloha and complex solidarity.

Jennie Ward

Managing Director

  • Jennie Ward (she/her) is a producer, theater director, teacher, and community builder in the Twin Cities; she has previously worked in Chicago, New York City, and Boston. Arts Infrastructure: Managing Director at the Center for Performing Arts in South Minneapolis; Associate Producer for The Remember Project (a program of Trellis); and Interim Manager of Operations for Six Points Theater. Directing/Assistant directing: Six Points Theater (formerly Minnesota Jewish Theater Company), Playwrights’ Center, Guthrie Theater, Jungle Theater, Theatre in the Round, and St. Croix Festival Theater. Teaching: University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Acting Conservatory, Hamline University, and St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. Jennie earned her MFA in Directing from the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training (Harvard University). In all her work, Jennie builds opportunities for people to authentically connect with each other through art, generating energies that deepen our capacities and stretch us towards mutual relationship. 

Jay Claire

Company Manager

  • Jay Claire (they/them) is a Euro-American carpenter, theatrical technician, production manager, and outdoor educator from Sacramento, California. Jay’s professional life centers art-work as liberatory praxis, and seeks to engage queer joy, gender foolery, and ecstatic embodiment as radically nourishing (and gleefully destabilizing!) forces. Since receiving their BA in Theatre and Dance from Macalester College, they have worked in various capacities with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Mixed Blood Theatre, the University of Minnesota’s Department of Theatre and Dance, and Theater Mu. As an outdoor educator, Jay’s focus is cultivating curiosity, gratitude, and right relationship with our beyond-human relatives. They live in St. Paul with their partner and their cat, Raisin, and spend their free time leading outings with the Urban Bird Collective.

Fae Dougherty

Production Manager

  • Megan Fae Dougherty (Production Manager, she/her) has been a stage manager, run crew, electrician, prop designer, and wardrobe supervisor in the Twin Cities theater scene since 2008. She has been seen working with a variety of companies including Flying Foot Forum, Theatre Latte Da, TigerLion Arts, Park Square Theatre, Stages Theatre Company, Artistry, Mixed Blood, and The History Theatre. Prior to moving to Minneapolis/St. Paul she traveled on national tours, and worked west at Utah Shakespeare Festival, and The Santa Fe Opera. Fae is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association and I.A.T.S.E Local 13.

collaborators

sharon bridgforth

Dramaturg

  • Sharon Bridgforth (she/her) is a Doris Duke Performing Artist, United States Artists Fellow, a Winner of Yale’s Windham Campbell Prize in Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Member, McKnight National Fellow and a New Dramatists alumnae. She has received support from Creative Capital, MAP Fund and the National Performance Network. Sharon’s bull-jean 5 4& dem/dey back is published by 53rd State Press. Sharon is an Associate Company Member at Pillsbury House + Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. Her dat Black Mermaid Man Lady/The Show is streaming on the Twin Cities PBS plat- form. A member of the National Institute for Directing & Ensemble Creation, Sharon has worked as a writer, dramaturg and voice-over performer for Ananya Dance Theatre since 2014, and has served as a mentor for ADT’s NextGen ChoreoLab program. More at sharonbridgforth.com.

*Mina Kinukawa

Scenic/Props Designer

  • Mina Kinukawa’s design for MN theaters include: Penumbra Theatre, MN Opera, Theater Mu, Theater Latté Da, Jungle Theater, Full Circle Theater, New Native Theatre and Pillsbury House + Theatre. She has also worked in film & TV productions in Los Angeles, and designed scenery for regional theaters such as East West Players, EchoTheatre Company, Lodestone Theatre Company, Company of Angels, Milagro Theater, Profile Theatre, and Northwest Children’s Theatre Company. Most recently, she designed scenery for Antaranga (Ananya Dance Theatre), Scotland, PA (Theater Latté Da), Unbroken Blossoms (East West Players), Blended Harmony (Theater Mu and History Theatre), and The Song Poet (MN Opera). She is an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. Mina is a member of the United Scenic Artists Local 829.

*Greg Schutte

Composer/Sound Designer

  • Greg Schutte is a composer, drummer, producer, and sound designer. As a touring drummer, Schutte currently plays with Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham. He has performed nationally and internationally with a variety of other artists, including Chastity Brown, Todd Clouser’s A Love Electric, The Hornheads, Jello- slave, Lori Line, Anthony Cox, Empire Brass, Chuchito Valdez, Bernard Allison, and more. He performed on B.B. King’s 2002 U.S. “Summer Blues Fest” with The Shane Henry Group; Ruf Records’ 2004 European Blues Caravan Tour with guitarist Sue Foley; and Cyndi Lauper’s 2006 Body Acoustic World Tour with Minneapolis Reggae Pop group The RULE. Schutte toured Iraq and Kuwait in 2010, performing for the U.S./Coalition Forces with singer/ songwriter Keri Noble. He owns and produces music at The Bathtub Shrine Recording Studio in NE Minneapolis.

Marcus Young 楊墨

Staging Collaborator

  • Marcus Young 楊墨 is a behavioral and social practice artist making work within mindfulness and learning communities, as well as for stage, museums, and the public realm. His work invites participation in artistic forms to expand the repertoire of human behavior and the expressivity of how we gather. Born in Hong Kong, Young went to Carleton College for music and the University of Minnesota for theater. He is a recipient of awards from the McKnight, Bush, and Jerome Foundations, and he received the Forecast Public Art Mid-Career Grant, given to one artist a year. From 2006 to 2015, he was City Artist in St. Paul. His project Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk transformed the city’s sidewalk maintenance program into a publishing entity for poetry. From 2020 to 2022 he was Artist in Residence for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, one of two of its kind in the nation placing artists in statewide agencies. There, he created the Land Acknowledgement Confluence Room, re-making a top-floor conference room in the State Transportation Building into a space for broadening awareness around land, body, and place. He is the founding artist for Don’t You Feel It Too? — a participatory street dance practice of social healing and inner-life liberation. He teaches “Art + Life” at the University of Minnesota as well as in the Creative Leadership MA program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Tish Jones

Sound Designer/Composer

  • Tish Jones is the Founder & Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks: a poet, narrative strategist, cultural producer, and educator from Saint Paul, MN, with a deep and resounding love for Black people, arts & culture, youth development, and civic engagement. As a performance artist her work has been shared in venues throughout the United States. Her writing can be found in We Are Meant to Rise (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), A Moment of Silence (Tru Ruts and The Playwrights Center, 2020), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2015) and more.
    Currently serving as a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and an Arts Matters Artist2Artist Fellow, Jones is grateful to have been supported through grants, fellowships, and awards from The Intercultural Leadership Institute, Springboard for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board and more. The generous support that she has received over the years has allowed her to excavate the kind of stories that chart new worlds— she is eternally grateful.

Spirit Paris Mcintyre

Composer/Musician/Vocalist

  • Spirit McIntyre (spirit/they/them) is a Composer, Cellist, Vocalist, Lyricist, Reiki Practitioner, Compassionate Facilitator, and Visual Artist who promotes empowerment and healing by any medium necessary. They believe in: the importance of breath, the power of deep listening, holding space for complex emotions, healing intergenerational trauma, honoring lovability, and growing compassionately through tight places to find authentic connection. Spirit incorporates these beliefs in their work which focuses on: Black folks, Transgender, Gender-Non-Conforming and Non-Binary identities, Health & Wellness, Self-Expression, Ancestral Worship, and Grief Practices. Spirit is a prolific collaborator and has been crafting improvisa-tion-based live music for dance and theatre since the early 2000’s, working with Marianela Boan, 2006-07; Olive Hip Hop Dance Theater, 2009; Khalil Munir, 2014; Maritza Mercado-Narcisse, 2016; KM Dance Project, 2013-2019; Jose Torres-Tama, 2017-2020; and many more. Their work is influenced by Blues, Middle Eastern, Classical, and Orisha worship music, incorporating Black excellence, Ancestral wisdom, polyrhythmic tenacity, high energy, intentional curiosity, spirituality, and emotionality. They seamlessly blend natural elements, animals, music, percussion, singing, and more into unforgettable soundscapes.

Douglas R. Ewart

Composer, Multi-instrumentalist,
Instrument Inventor and Builder

  • The polymathic Douglas R. Ewart has been honored for his work as a composer, improvising multi-instrumentalist, conceptual artist, sculptor, mask and instrument designer, builder and more. As an educator, Ewart bridges his kaleidoscopic activities with a vision that opposes today’s divided world by culture-fusing works that aim to restore the wholeness of communities and their members, and to emphasize the reality of the world’s interdependence. From Kingston, Jamaica, Ewart immigrated to Chicago in 1963. There he studied with the master musicians of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians—an organization he later served as chairman, at different intervals from 1979-1987 and into the millennium. He also studied music at VanderCook College of Music, and electronic music at Governors State University. Ewart is the founder of Arawak Records, is the leader of ensembles such as the Nyahbingi Drum Choir, Quasar, Clarinet Choir, and Douglas R. Ewart & Inventions. He is a designer and creator of instruments and kinetic sonic sculptures that have been exhibited in venues such as Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago. “Crepuscule,” his vast periodic conceptual work, is collectively actualized by scores of musicians, dancers, visual artists, poets, capoeira, puppeteers, martial artists, activists, the honoring of elders and more. Ewart’s honors include a U.S. Japan Creative Arts Fellowship, a Bush Artists Fellowship, and an Outstanding Artist Award granted by a former Chicago Mayor, Harold Washington. He is a Professor Emeritus at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago.

queen drea

Composer/Sound Designer, Vocalist

  • Andrea (Queen Drea) Reynolds, recipient of a 2017 Minnesota Emerging Composer Award administered by the American Composers Forum, is a vocalist, performance, and soundscape artist whose pieces are often conceived and created under the auspices of improvisational settings. Queen Drea has created work about depression in the Black community for Intermedia Arts, and about the loss of Black men’s lives in America at Red Eye Theater. She has been commissioned to compose soundscapes for Ananya Dance Theatre and Black Label Movement, sound design for Penumbra Theatre’s production of For Colored Girls, and is a 2020 Naked Stages Fellow with Pillsbury House Theatre.  https://www.queendrea.com

*Darren Johnson

Video Designer/Filmmaker

  • Darren Johnson (he/him) in addition to designing media for Ananya Dance Theatre’s performances for nearly two decades, Darren designed and implemented the dance floors and audio/visual systems for ADT’s Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice. A multi-disciplinary artist, his work in audio, film and poetry has encompassed issues from implicit bias to performance arts, running the gamut from documentary to experimental. Film collaborations with Ananya Chatterjea and Ananya Dance Theatre have screened and earned awards at festivals including The Harlem Film Festival, Film at Lincoln Center’s Dance on Camera Festival, The London International Screen Dance Festival, Paris International Short Film Festival, Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, and The Soho London Independent Film Festival. His spoken word poetry has manifested into two audio releases — the audiobook, Conundrums of Indignant Bliss, and a live jazz album Poetic Explorations with the Whitewashed Conundrums.

*Kevin a. Jones

Lighting Designer

  • Kevin A. Jones (he/him) has worked in the professional dance and theater community for over 45 years. He was resident lighting designer and production manager for James Sewell Ballet for 20 years. His designs have illuminated internationally acclaimed ballets such as Moving Works, Barrage, Appalachia Waltz, Your Move, and Guy Noir: The Ballet. Kevin designed for Minnesota Dance Theatre, CAAM Dance Theatre, SOLO: The McKnight Dance Fellows, and many others. He lit Sharon Eyal / Gai Behar’s Killer Pig for Gauthier Dance at the Colours International Dance Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, in 2017, and for Rambert2 in London and other venues in the UK in 2018-2019. Kevin is the Production Manager for The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, where Dr. Maya Angelou declared him “one of the best stage managers in America.” He designed and implemented the lighting and sound systems for the TEK Box at the Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts. He also designed and implemented the dance floors and audio/visual systems for ADT’s Shawngrām Institute for Performance & Social Justice.

*Annie Cady

Costume Design/Construction

  • Annie Cady (she/her) is thrilled to be working with Ananya Dance Theatre again. In addition to costume design, Annie is also a theater educator and instructor at Normandale Community College. Her professional design credits include productions for Children’s Theatre Company, Commonweal Theatre, Ten Thousand Things, Jungle Theatre, Black Label Movement, Six Points Theatre, AMP, and Threads Dance Company. Annie holds an MFA degree in Theatre Design and Technology from the University of Minnesota, and a BA in Theatre Arts from Simpson College.

dipankar Mukherjee

Staging Collaborator

  • Dipankar Mukherjee is a professional director originally from Calcutta, India with a 25-year history of directing. He is the Artistic Director of Pangea World Theater and received the 2023 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award.

    He co-founded Pangea World Theater, an international theater in Minneapolis that is a progressive space for arts and dialogue. His aesthetics have evolved through his commitment to social justice, equity and deep spirituality and these factors along with relevant politics form the basis of his work. As a director, he has worked in India, England, Canada and the United States.  
     
    Dipankar has received the Humphrey Institute Fellowship to Salzburg and has been a Ford Foundation delegate to India and Lebanon. He is a recent recipient of the Bush Leadership Fellowship award to study non-violence and peace methodologies in India and South Africa. Dipankar was invited to visit the White House as part of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Delegation. In his rehearsal and workshop practices, Dipankar’s facilitated processes that work to disrupt colonial, racist and patriarchal modalities that we have inherited and collaboratively searches for an alternate way of working.

*Pooja Goswami Pavan

Hindustani Vocalist

  • Pooja Goswami Pavan, PhD (she/her) is a Hindustani (North Indian classical) vocalist and composer. Her silky yet strong voice has the capability to move in three octaves effortlessly. Her intensive training in Hindustani classical music has allowed her to broaden her ability to sing in a variety of genres with ease. In addition to her singing experience, she has studied the languages of the sacred, spiritual and romantic poetry she interprets. Her facility with the languages of the within dance, music, and movement arts, as a means to heal, rejoice, envision, and shift towards collective action. Indian subcontinent allows her to do full justice to the musical expression of the poetry. Equally adept at cross-cultural collaborations and more traditional formats, she has performed at many prestigious venues internationally and won numerous awards for her creative work. Also an accomplished educator, she is much sought-after for her lecture- demonstrations on Hindustani music.

mankwe Ndosi

Vocalist

  • Mankwe Ndosi (she/her) is a Song Catcher and Culture Worker based in Minneapolis, MN. Mankwe’s creative practice emerges from Black ritual legacies of music and performance learned from and played with Douglas R. Ewart, Laurie Smith Carlos, Sharon Bridgforth, Amoke Kubat, Nicole Mitchell, Miriam Makeba, the Give Get Sistet, Davu Seru, Medium Zach, Tomeka Reid, Body mEmOri, ancestors, earth, and many peers across species, cultures, and creative genres. She is a member of Chicago’s stalwart AACM — the Association for Creative Musicians, and a Resident Community Engaged Artist at Pillsbury House and Theatre. She applies creative and embodied practices to grow emergent engagements of earth, sound, and regeneration.

Laurie Carlos

Staging Collaborator and Performer

  • Laurie Carlos was an American actress and avant-garde performance artist, playwright, theater director and poet. A native of New York City’s Lower East Side, Carlos became a seminal American theater artist and original player in NYC’s avant-garde performance scene, and developed new characters and aesthetics for the stage for more than 40 years. A powerful artist-advocate for women and communities of color, Carlos pushed the field forward through her innovative, feminist creations, teaching, mentorship, and visioning.

    A gifted writer, her oft-anthologized pieces, including White Chocolate, The Cooking Show, and Organdy Falsetto, represented daring and successful forays into abstract aesthetics. She received an OBIE Award for Lady In Blue, the role she created in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. She won two New York Dance and Performance Awards (Bessie Awards) as choreographer of White Chocolate and Heat. Carlos’ work as a collaborating poet, dramaturg, and performer with the Urban Bush Women, Movin’ Spirits Dance Company, Ananya Dance Theatre, and with artists Sharon Bridgforth, Carl Hancock Rux, Lourdes Perez, Sue Lori Parks, Zell Miller III, and Daniel Alexander Jones is the stuff of performance legend. Carlos, along with Robbie McCauley and Jessica Hagedorn, formed the performance group Thought Music in the mid-1980s, producing the revolutionary performance work “Teenytown.” With Ananya Chatterjea and Marilyn Amaral, Carlos created a dance poem, Marion’s Terrible Time of Joy, in 2003.

    In 2012, Carlos wrote the following artist’s statement, which appeared in the program notes for Ananya Dance theatre’s Moreechika: Season of Mirage.

    “I am always working to reveal in the creation of my dance-driven text the multivocality of women’s stories and diasporas. These stories provoked by community gatherings of excavated dialogues, family myths, secrets, unrevealed dialects, moans and kicks, infuse the recipe of scripted language.

    I work in a jazz-aesthetic rooted in classical ragas, field hollarts, urban breaths and improvisations of melody.

    I am always new in the room.”

    Laurie Carlos, 1949-2016

Photos on this website by: GAddison Visuals, Canaan Mattson, Isabel Farajardo, Sophea Ek, R. Paul Virtucio, Bruce Silcox, Randy Karels, and Laichee Yang

Website Video Design and Editing: Darren Johnson

*kt shorb

Staging Collaborator

  • kt shorb (they/them) is a director, actor, and scholar. Directorial credits include: Fifty Boxes of Earth, Ottone in Villa, Lucretia, L'incoronazione di Poppea, She Kills Monsters, black girl love: an adaptation project, The Women of __, Carmen, 893 | Ya-ku-za, Scheherazade, and The Mikado: Reclaimed. They founded and were Producing Artistic Director of the Austin-based devised theatre troupe, Generic Ensemble Company. They are Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Macalester College and the Vice President for the Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists. They are recipient of a 2023-24 Social Science Research Council Arts Research with Communities of Color Fellowship to study and research Theater Mu.

*nia witherspoon

Dramaturg

  • Dr. Nia O. Witherspoon (she/they) is a Black queer multidisciplinary artist + healing justice practitioner investigating the metaphysics of love, aesthetics of care, and mystic initiatic pathways of Afro-indigenous knowledge systems as ways to re-engage radical ecology and imagination. Witherspoon holds a BA from Smith College and a PhD from Stanford University.

    A practitioner of African cosmologies combining Black feminism and eco-criticism with mediums in writing, technology, ritual-performance, sound, and installation, Witherspoon creates decolonial portals for communion, witnessing, and reconnection. Recent works include: Priestess of Twerk: A Black Femme Star Temple + Wisdom School (HERE Arts Center, 2024), Chronicle X: The Dark Girl Chronicles (The Shed, 2021), and MESSIAH (La Mama, 2019).

    She is a recipient of the Tow Fellowship, NEFA/NTP, NPN Creation + Touring Fund, and NYSCA, Creative Capital, Jerome New Artist Fellowship, HARP, and residencies at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, Marble House, Jacob's Pillow, Musical Theatre Factory, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has been featured by Irondale, Theatre MITU, Mercury Store, The Bushwick Starr, BRIC, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Joe’s Pub, JACK, La Mama ETC, Playwright’s Realm, Links Hall, National Black Theatre, Brava Theatre, BAAD, Movement Research, Painted Bride, and elsewhere. Her writing is published in the Journal of Popular Culture, Imagined Theatres, Women and Collective Creation, and IMANIMAN: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands. She has held creative and academic appointments at BerkleeNYC, Williams College, Fordham University, University of Massachusetts, Florida State University, and Arizona State University. She is a current practitioner at MINKA Brooklyn, where she teaches yoga, spirit-led writing, and facilitates sonic healing spaces. THE DARK GIRL CHRONICLES: A Trilogy will be published by 53rd State Press in Spring 2025.

Board of Directors

Cameron Alosa, SECRETARY
Non-profit administrator and Visual Artist

Sherie Apungu
Data/Research Analyst and Former ADT Ensemble Member

Divya Karan
Business Intelligence Consultant 

Christine King
Artistic Administrator, Dancer

Gina Kundan, PRESIDENT
HR Professional; former ADT Ensemble Member

Irna Landrum
Senior digital campaign strategist, movement trainer/facilitator, and career-long grassroots organizer

Robert Lynn, TREASURER
Attorney CPA

Gary Peterson
Arts Consultant, former ADT Managing Director

E. Gaynell Sherrod, Ed.D
Professor of Dance

Clarence White
Writer, Organizational Consultant