Ananya Chatterjea Biography 
Ananya Chatterjea is an Indian contemporary dancer and choreographer who teaches this art form to many students. She established Ananya Dance Theatre and is a professor at University of Minnesota, Minnesota where she stays right now. She was born and brought up in Kolkata, where she trained in Indian classical and folk dance forms. A dance scholar, and dance educator, her work can be included in the theme, “call to action“ with a particular focus on women artists of color. Through her works she shows the social injustice that prevails in the society against women, that too on the base of theme of colours.
She was born in Kolkata where she spent her childhood learning classical and folk dances of India, particularly Odissi. She thought of exploring social themes through contemporary art forms. She moved to US in the 1990s and studied at Columbia University. Chatterjea founded Ananya Dance Theatre in 2004 which focuses on contemporary art forms with themes, related to colour. Ananya wonderfully choreographed art pieces which focused on social injustices against women across the world. Main objective is to create questions rather than legislative shifts.
Ananya Dance Theatre premieres performs in the twin cities once in a year and conducts tours across the globe with performances, workshops and dialogues. Apart from 12 US countries, her troupe has performed in 12 other countries as well. In May 2015, they performed at “Shelter” for Aeon‘s annual Beyond Bricks & Mortar at the Hilton Minneapolis for fund raising. Nearly 800 people from all parts of our community attended.
Her works interweaves the biographies and histories of women of color. Some of the publications include - The choreography of Chandralekha: re(de)fining the postmodernist/feminist awareness in and through dance, How Can the Subaltern Speak?, Dance research in India: A brief report and a few more. She is 45 years old right now who got permanently shifted to US in 1990s.
Published: N/A
Updated: December 11, 2015
