The College of Arts + Architecture's annual convocation lecture will be presented by Ananya Chatterjea on September 8 at 1 pm in the Rowe Arts lecture hall, Rowe 130. After this lecture, she will lead a participatory event outside in the Arts Qad. The outdoor event will focus on the pillars of the College Culture Statement with faculty leads from each department.
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 domestic 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.