DANCE MATTERS: Environmental Vibe

April 28 – 30, 2023
Dance Matters: Environmental Vibe
co-sponsored and held at The Ohio State University, Department of Dance.
In-Person events took place at the Ohio State Dance Studios and Barnett Theatre, with some sessions live streamed.

The guest artist, Ananya Chatterjea’s work brings together Contemporary Dance, social justice choreography, and healing justice. She is Artistic Director of Ananya Dance Theatre, a dance company of BIPOC femmes, and co-founder of the Shawngr?m Institute for Performance and Social Justice. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow, 2016, Joyce Award recipient, 2018 UBW Choreographic Center Fellow, 2019 Dance/USA Artist Fellow, the 2021 A. P. Andersen Award and 2012 and 2021 McKnight Choreography Fellowships. She is currently developing Nün Gher?o, salt water stories, with the support of a creative residency at Jacob’s Pillow. Her second book, Heat and Alterity in Contemporary Dance: South-South Choreographies was published in 2020 (Palgrave McMillan). A co-edited anthology, Dancing Transnational Feminisms: Ananya Dance Theatre and the Art of Social Justice was published in 2022 (Univ. of Washington Press). She teaches Dance Studies courses such as Choreographing Social Justice, and Contemporary Practice at the University of Minnesota.
(www.ananyadancetheatre.org)

Ananya Chatterjea offered a discussion on her work of social justice. She provided a session on Yorchh?, the signature contemporary dance vocabulary created by Ananya, by intermixing core movement principles from the traditional dance form Odissi, Vinyasa Yoga, and the martial art form, Mayurbhanj Chhau. She performed a piece in the evening concert. The performance was an excerpt from DASTAK (2021), “knocking” in Farsi. Her solo was dedicated to so many women and femmes from marginalized communities, especially those who have suffered so much torture in state custody, even as they have continuously pushed back against violences of caste, gender, class, faith, and supremacist hierarchies.

Festival theme was “Environmental Vibe” This theme is a reference to individual and global influences that create moods and feelings within spaces visited or inhabited by others. There is an atmosphere of generating, crafting, and constructing. The artistic process is affected by emotions, gestures, space, and elements. Culture, tradition and values become a part of the environment and the ecological issues associated with it, bringing balance to an unstable ecosystem.

Guest Artist Highlights

OhioDance Class Highlights

Friday, April 28 Studio Concert Highlights
Professional Studio Concert Choreographers: Isabel Bowser, Alisha Jihn, Griset Damas-Roche, Amy Jones Gibbons, InPulse Dance Company, Jasmine Snellen.

Saturday, April 29 Theatre Concert Highlights
Professional Theater Concert Choreographers: Ananya Chatterjea, Dancing Wheels Company, GroundWorks DanceTheater, Momar Ndiaye, Perennial Movement Group, Kora Radella, Mansee Singhi, Elyse Morckel, Kate Myers, Morgan Walker.

Pre-Professional Concert Highlights
Choreographers: Sukanya Chand, Amanda Clark, Lydia Davis, Eden Hudson, Dallas Karr, Joseph Moriarty, Yulia Lukyanova Moriarty, Chomba Olenga, Mansee Singhi, Melanie Szucs

Return to the archive