Salia Sanou

2017 McKnight International Choreographer

Photo by Antoine Tempe

Salia Sanou is a choreographer and dancer from Burkina Faso, born in Léguéma. At a young age he was introduced to the Bobo rituals and traditions, and his early training in African dance was with Drissa Sanon (Ballet Koul Odrafrou de Bobo Dioulasso), Alasane Congo (Maison des jeunes et de la culture de Ouagadougou), Irène Tassembedo (Compagnie Ebène) and Germaine Acogny (Ballet du Troisième Monde).

Salia Sanou was for many years the artistic director of the Choreographic Encounters of Africa and the Indian Ocean, and he was in residence from 2008 to 2011 at the Centre National de la Danse in Pantin. In 2011 he established his own company Perpetual Movements. He is co-founder and co-director of the Center for Choreographic Development La Termitière in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The first of its kind in Africa, this initiative is dedicated to creation and training worldwide.

He has created numerous choreographic works, including Beyond Borders (2012);  Doubaley (The Mirror) with Japanese musician Takumi Fukushima; Clamor of Arena created in July 2014 for the Montpellier festival; Kupupura created for Tumbuka Dance of the Mozambique National Ballet, where he was guest choreographer; and Desire for horizon created in Paris in July 2016 for the Theatre National de Chaillot.

He is the recipient of many honors and awards, including first prize for contemporary African dance (AFAA) awarded during the National Culture Week in Burkina Faso; the Trophée Cultures France des Créateurs sans frontières; and he was named an officer in the order of Arts and Letters by the F

rench Ministry of Culture for his choreographic work around the world. He is the author of Afrique, danse contemporaine, published jointly by the Cercle d’art and the Centre National de la Danse de Pantin.

Through his work, Salia seeks to make visible the strength, poetry and musicality of a changing Africa and he aims to create work that reflects real life and the challenges of our time.

“The flow of ideas and cultures are personally very important to me, making us see, hear and understand the creative power as a vehicle of tolerance.” - Salia Sanou

For more information visit his website here

RESIDENCY EVENTS

Sanou will began his residency in Minneapolis in October 2017, and created a work with Karen L. Charles's Threads Dance Project, our partner for the 2017 residency.  Sanou taught classes for Threads company members, and participate in a variety of community events. In November, Sanou attended technical rehearsals and the premiere of his commissioned work at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts on Nov. 3-4, 2017. 

Megan Mayer

2016 Choreographer Fellow

photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Megan Mayer is an artist working with choreography, dance, experimental video and photography. She obsesses over minimalism, mimicry, tenderness, wry humor, empathy, fake bad timing and exacting musicality. Her work offers glimpses of internal terrain and unexpected expressive delicacies. By exposing tiny emotional undercurrents concerning the body, Mayer constructs a unique perspective of what dance can be: virtuosity in vulnerability and victory in a gesture. Drawn to the edges of the experience of performing: the anticipatory rapid heartbeat before going onstage, and the regretful relief after exiting, her work often reveals where that switch lives in the body. Mayer’s work has been recognized by The Right Here Showcase commission (2016), a MN SAGE Award for Dance in Outstanding Design for Soft Fences (2015), a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant (2014), a residency at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography in Tallahassee, Florida (2012), a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreographers (2010) and a Jerome Foundation Travel Study Grant (2010). Professionally based in Minneapolis since 1991, Mayer hold a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota. She feels most like herself when she is onstage being other people. www.meganmayer.com

Rosy Simas

2016 Choreographer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Rosy Simas is an enrolled Seneca from the Heron clan. She is a Minneapolis based choreographer, engaged in the dance field as a performer, teacher, curator, lecturer, panelist, activist, advocate, and mentor to other Native artists and artists of color.

Simas is 2016 First Peoples Fund Fellow, a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2013 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellow. Her work is supported nationally by NEFA National Dance Project (2014, 2016), National Presenters Network (2015), and regionally by the Minnesota State Arts Board (2014, 2016) and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council (2014). Her most recent work, We Wait In The Darkness, has toured to 14 cities and won a 2014 Minnesota SAGE Award for Performance and a 2014 City Pages Artist of the Year citation.

For more than 20 years Simas has created work dealing with a wide range of political, social and cultural subject matter from a Native feminist perspective. Her newest work Skin(s) is being developed in three regions -- the Twin Cities, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago metropolitan area. Skin(s) explores what we hold, reveal, and perceive through our skin. Simas is examining the beauty and diversity of how Native people identify and the contradictions, pride, joy, pain, and sorrow that arise out of our many dimensions of identity. Skin(s) will open at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis in October 2016.

Simas's main collaborator is French composer François Richomme. Together they work with Native artists and artists of color from many different disciplines.

http://www.rosysimas.com

Rosy Simas Touring Information

Pramila Vasudevan

2016 Choreographer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Pramila Vasudevan is the founder and Artistic Director of Aniccha Arts (2004), an experimental arts collaborative that produces site­ specific performances that examine agency, voice, and group dynamics within community histories, institutions, and systems. She has a background in Bharatanatyam (classical Indian dance) and contemporary Indian dance, a BFA in Interactive Media (2004), and a BA in Political Science (1999), all which inform her interdisciplinary voice and her socially conscious performance practice. Through years of researching audience methods, studying how technology supports the integration of artistic disciplines, and analyzing physical patterns in our bodies, she is committed to the creation of singular performances.

Major influences and teachers include Dr. Bala Nandakumar, Roshan Vajifdar Ghosh, Ranee Ramaswamy, Nirmala Rajasekar, Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, Piotr Szyhalski, Steve Dietz, and Dr. Ali Momeni. 

http://www.aniccha.org

Pramila Vasudevan Touring Information

Lisa "MonaLisa" Berman

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Lisa “MonaLisa” Berman, founder and Artistic Director of BRKFST Dance Company, has been working as a dancer, choreographer and instructor since 2004. Berman is the recipient of the 2008 Jerome Travel and Study Grant for Choreography, and 2016 McKnight Dancer Fellowship, providing opportunities to work with Bgirl Aruna, founder of HipHopHuis in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Victor Quijada, founder and Artistic Director of RUBBERBANDance Group in Montreal, Canada.

Locally MonaLisa has performed at the Southern Theater, Walker Art Center, The Ritz Theater, MIA, Xcel Energy Center, Target Center, Palace Theater, The Cowles Center, Intermedia Arts, First Avenue. Beyond the Twin Cities she's been seen at NJPAC, Paradise Theater, Lincoln Center, Performa Biennial via Salon 94 NYC, Art Basel-Miami, Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., Kunsthal Museum, Gallery Tribute to Women in Hip Hop Rotterdam, Netherlands, and The National History Museum of Amsterdam.

MonaLisa is currently working as a Breaking instructor/choreographer for Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, The Cowles Center, Breck School, and Hamline University. 

SOLO Choreographer Victor Quijada

https://deskgram.org/bgirlmonalisa 

Christopher Hannon

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Christopher Hannon is in his 28th year as a professional dancer. Chris has performed soloist and principal roles with Ballet Austin, Ballet Florida, Ballet British Columbia, Alberta Ballet, Kokoro Dance in Vancouver BC, Gina Patterson's Voice Dance in Austin Texas, and Compania de Danza21 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was a member of the James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis for 11 years. 

Chris trained at the Houston Ballet Academy while studying classical and jazz guitar at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts also in Houston, Texas. He later completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Texas in Austin. 

SOLO Choreographer Gina Patterson

Chitra Vairavan

2016 Dancer Fellow

Photo credit: Tim Rummelhoff

Chitra Vairavan is a contemporary Indian dancer and choreographer of Tamil/South Indian-American descent. Vairavan is immersed in both Tamil culture and progressive brown politics here in the U.S. She dances to heal and creates dance to help heal others.

Her contemporary Indian dance foundations began as a founding member of Ananya Dance Theatre in 2004 and a dance collaborator with Aniccha Arts since 2007. She has labored as a professional dancer for fifteen years and continues exploring and experimenting with her Indian-based artistic roots. The aesthetic of her movement is through both yoga and contemporary Indian dance forms – mainly a mixture of training in Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Yorchha.

Dance Magazine named her "25 to Watch" in 2017, and she was awarded the 2018 Naked Stages Fellowship to create a site-specific performance in January 2019. 

SOLO Choreographer Eiko Otake

"Bird"
Solo performed by Chitra Vairavan, Choreographed by Ananya Chatterjea
Moreechika: Season of Mirage | Ananya Dance Theatre (2012)
 

Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar

2016 McKnight International Choreographers

Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with the Batsheva Dance Company from 1990 until 2008 and began choreographing within the framework of the company’s Batsheva Dancers Create project. Eyal served as Associate Artistic Director of Batsheva between 2003-2004, and House Choreographer of the company between 2005-2012.

In 2009 Eyal began creating pieces for other dance companies in the world: Killer Pig (2009) and Corps de Walk (2011) for Carte Blanche Dance of Norway; Too Beaucoup (2011) for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Plafona (2012) for Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg, Germany.

In 2013 Eyal launches L-E-V with her long-time collaborator Gai Behar. This October, they premiered Untitled Black in collaboration with the Goteborgs Operans Danskompani in Gothenburg, Sweden. Eyal is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2004 Ministry of Culture Award for young dance creators and the 2009 Landau Prize for the Performing Arts in the dance category. In 2008, she was named a Chosen Artist of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation.

As a party producer, Gai was taking a big part of Tel Aviv nightlife scene as well as a curator of multidisciplinary art events from 1999 till 2005. Gai joined Sharon in co-creating Bertolina in 2005 and has collaborated on the creation of Sharon Eyal ever since.

For more information visit their website here

RESIDENCY EVENTS

Partner: James Sewell Ballet (JSB)

The 2016 McKnight International Residency took place over two residency periods. In October 2016, Rebecca Hytting (Sharon Eyal's rehearsal director) worked with the James Sewell Ballet to set Killer Pig on the company. In November Eyal and Behar were in residence in the Twin Cities, working with JSB.

During each residency period Eyal and Hytting taught Gaga-style classes at both the Sewell studio and Cowles Center Target Education Studio, taught by Hytting, Eyal and local teacher.
The International Choreographers and participated in a variety of community events. In November, Eyal returned to the Twin Cities with Behar for final rehearsals and events, as well as the JSB premiere of their work Killer Pig at the O'Shaughnessy on Nov. 4-6. 

photo credit: Debra Fisher Goldstein

Related event: Rimon Salon  "Talking the Walk: New Dance in Israel."

See video of Killer Pig set on L-E-V.

Joanie Smith

2014 Choreographer Fellow

Joanie Smith founded Shapiro & Smith Dance with Danial Shapiro in 1987 developing a collaborative method to create their work. Danial Shapiro died in 2006 and now Joanie Smith serves as sole Artistic Director and Choreographer and is honing that process in new ways with the members of Shapiro & Smith Dance.

Shapiro & Smith’s work has been commissioned by companies as diverse as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the PACT Company of South Africa. The Company has toured all over the U.S. and abroad including performing four times at The Joyce Theater in New York City, ten years at The Southern Theater in Minneapolis and now three seasons at The Cowles Center For Dance And The Performing Arts. Over 600 dancers have performed, To Have And To Hold, and S & S’s production of ANYTOWN had more than 40 performances across the U.S., including The Joyce Theater and The Guthrie Theater.

Smith was recognized as an “Artist Of The Year,” in 2011 by City Pages and received a Sage Award for, “Outstanding Performance,” in 2012. She has received a Bush Fellowship in Choreography, a McKnight Choreographer’s Fellowship, and was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Helsinki, Finland. Smith holds the Barbara Barker Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota and the John Black Johnston Distinguished Professorship. Shapiro & Smith Dance has received continued institutional support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The McKnight Foundation, and The Target Foundation.
Joanie Smith created The Danial Shapiro Fund in 2008 and annually awards funds to Twin Cities’ choreographers.

Visit their site for more information.

Patrick Scully

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

2015 Choreographer Fellow

Patrick Scully is a Minneapolis based choreographer/dancer and performance artist. He began dancing in 1972 as a college freshman. In 1976 he co-founded Contactworks, a Minneapolis based dance collective focused on contact improvisation. In 1980 he left Contactworks in search of a way to bring his voice as a gay man into the work he was creating. This eventually led him to Remy Charlip’s Naropa East workshop in 1984, Meetings with Remarkable Women. That led him to dance with Remy, beginning with Remy’s Ten Men show in BAM’s Next Wave Festival in 1984. In his heart, and daily life, Patrick is still dancing with Remy. Patrick’s most current project is Leaves of Grass – Uncut, about Walt Whitman. In addition to his performing work, Patrick was founder and the long time director of Patrick’s Cabaret, in Minneapolis.

Chris Schlichting

2015 Choreographer Fellow

Chris Schlichting is a Minnesota-based choreographer and performer who believes in flexible definitions of dance. His choreography leans on the formality of structural investigation and the emotion of earnest expression. His dances have a tendency to simultaneously evoke the grandiosity of spectacle and the delicacy of intimate moments. Schlichting develops dances outside the constraints of thematic and conceptual frameworks, allowing choreographic process to develop focus through physical intuition and sensory awareness. 

Schlichting was named Best Choreographer in 2013 by Minneapolis-St. Paul City Pages for his work Matching Drapes, which also received two Sage Awards, including one for “Outstanding Performance” and one for “Outstanding Design”. He is the first recipient of the American Dance Institute’s (Rockville, MD) Commissioned Artist award, a new project that provides commissioning funds, fiscal sponsorship, developmental and production support for a new work from one U.S. based choreographer every year. 

Schlichting has been presented by venues throughout Minnesota, including the Southern Theater, the Bryant Lake Bowl, the Red Eye Theater, the Walker Art Center and many more; in New York at Danspace Project and as a frequent contributor to CATCH! performance series; at ODC in San Francisco, CA; and at Velocity in Seattle, WA. He frequently collaborates with Morgan Thorson, including performances in "Faker" and "Heaven", both of which enjoyed illustrious tours throughout the U.S. and for "Faker" also in Daejeon, South Korea. 

Schlichting’s work has been commissioned by Danspace Project at St. Marks (by Tere O’Connor for Food for Thought, by Judy Hussie-Taylor for the Body Madness Platform), James Sewell Ballet (Ballet Works Project), the Walker Art Center (The Momentum Series, the 25th Sculpture Garden Celebration, and for a new work in the 2014/15 performance season), The Southern Theater, Young Dance, and Zenon Dance Company.

Wynn Fricke

Photo by Tim Rummelhoff

2014 Choreographer Fellow

Wynn Fricke is a choreographer, dancer and somatic movement educator. She has served on the faculties of the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, Winona State University and as choreographer-in-residence for Minnesota Dance Theater. She is currently director of the dance program at Macalester College. For nine years, she danced with Zenon Dance Company and in 1997 became founder and artistic director of Borrowed Bones Dance Theater. She has received commissions from Ballet Arts Minnesota, James Sewell Ballet, Ruth MacKenzie for her creation of Kalevala, Dream of the Salmon Maiden, and Zenon Dance Company, among others. Her choreography has been produced nationally and abroad in Russia and Micronesia.

Wynn is a recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, and the New York State-funded grant Arts International and Trust for Mutual Understanding. In 2012, Wynn was honored with a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performance for Wine Dark Sea, performed by Zenon Dance Company and created in collaboration with composer Peter O’Gorman. She also received a Live Music for Dance award from the American Composers Forum to create Twine with composer Marc Anderson. She also worked with Frank Theatre on Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. Wynn is co-founder of Common Ground Meditation Center where she teaches Integral Hatha Yoga.

For more information about her work visit her site.

The BodyCartography Project

2010 Choreographer Fellow

Photo credit: Cameron Wittig

Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad, as co-directors of The BodyCartography Project, investigate the physicality of space in urban, domestic, wild and social landscapes through dance, performance, video and installation work. Their ventures range from intimate solos for the street or stage, to large community dance works in train stations, short experimental films in national parks, to complex works for site or stage amidst installations of video and sound.

Their work has been presented across the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Russia and South America. Recent work includes Mammal, a commission for the Lyon Opera Ballet, 1⁄2 Life, a collaboration with physicist Bryce Beverlin II, visual artist Emmett Ramstad and composer Zeena Parkins at Performance Space 122, NYC, the Southern Theater and Art of This Gallery in Minneapolis. They are featured artists in the first book about site dance in the USA published by University of Florida Press entitled Site Dance, the Lure of Alternative Spaces. They have been honored with two Minnesota SAGE Awards for Dance, multiple New Zealand Fringe Festival awards, City Pages Artists of the Year in 2008, ADF Dancing for the Camera and Kerry Film Festival awards. They are grateful for the support of the Jerome Foundation, MAP Fund, Bush Foundation, Public Art St Paul, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Moore Family Fund, Forecast Public Artworks, amongst others.

Penelope Freeh

2010 Choreographer Fellow

Photo Credit: Sean Smuda

Penelope Freeh's choreography has been commissioned by James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Orchestra, 3-Legged Race, the Walker Art Center/Southern Theater's Momentum, the Weisman Art Museum, Minnesota Ballet, Skylark Opera and Link Vostok Dance Festival in Russia among others. She has twice been presented by Ballet Builders in NYC. She has taught residencies at St. Catherine University, Carleton College, St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists and Perpich Center for Arts Education. Previous awards include a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers (1998), a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship (1998) and two Career Opportunity Grants (1999 and 2001), and a Jerome Foundation Travel Grant (2001). Penelope was a sixteen-year member of James Sewell Ballet where she served as Artistic Associate. She has staged the work of James Sewell on Portland Opera, Sandra Organ Dance Company, Company C Contemporary Ballet and Alaska Dance Theatre. She is adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota and summer faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. She has worked with Deborah Jinza Thayer's Movement Architecture since 1999 and has danced with TU Dance, MN Opera, CT Ballet Theatre, Michael Mao Dance and Dayton Ballet.

She maintained a blog from 2006-2009 (barefootpenny.blogspot.com) where she wrote a hybrid of critique, memoir and personal essay through the lens of dance. From February 2008 - April 2009 she wrote the dance column for METRO Magazine. In May 2008 she was featured in and wrote "Why I Dance" for Dance Magazine. She served on the MN Fringe Board from 2004-2010 and has twice served as a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers panelist.

Penelope grew up at the Dayton Ballet Dance Center in Ohio. Additional training includes the Joffrey Ballet School, the Paul Taylor School and two years on full scholarship at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.

Chris Yon

2011 Choreographer Fellow

Photo credit: Cameron Wittig

Chris Yon, choreographer and performer, b. 1980, Los Angeles, CA. Based in Brooklyn through most of the '00's, he now lives and works in Minneapolis.

As a performer, he has worked with and for Ann Carlson, Yoshiko Chuma, Justin Jones, Karinne Keithley, David Neumann, Basil Twist and Kristin Van Loon. Yon's choreographies have been presented locally at Bryant Lake Bowl, Walker Art Center and The Southern, and nationally and internationally at Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, La Mama, Symphony Space, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Gershwin Hotel, CBGB's, The Knitting Factory, Philadelphia Dance Project, ODC Theater, Velocity Dance Center, Highways Performance Space, Project Art Centre (Dublin), Tangente (Montreal), and CiteDanse (Grenoble).

His work has been commissioned by two repertory companies: Irish Modern Dance Theatre (Dublin) and d9 dance collective (Seattle). Named a "Very Young Hot Shot" in The Village Voice and among "25 Dancers to Watch" in Dance Magazine. He has had residencies and space grants at The Yard, SILO and BAX. Co-founder of Ur, your neighborhood dance palace in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2003-2005. Recipient: 2003 NYFA Fellowship for Performance Art (shared with Justin Jones), 2005 BESSIE Award for Performance, 2009 Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performance. BFA, NYU. Chris Yon's work entitled ECHO PARK Dream Ballet Essay: Les Sylphides without Margot Fonteyn v. The Pips without Gladys Knight premiered July 14-16, 2011 as part of the Momentum Series presented by the Southern Theater and the Walker Art Center.

For more information go to his site.

Uri Sands

2011 Choreographer Fellow

Photo credit: Ingrid Werthmann

Uri Sands' choreography has received national recognition for the fusion of classical elegance with edgy contemporary action, for pulsating intensity with poetic lyricism.

A native of Miami, Uri performed as a principal dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for five years, with Philadanco, Minnesota Dance Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, as a guest artist with Complexions under the direction of Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, and as a principal dancer with North Carolina Dance Theatre. His choreographic commissions include, among others, Vocalessence, Zenon Dance, Penumbra Theater, North Carolina Dance Theatre and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In addition to several film and television credits, Uri has taught dance extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

He was awarded a 2004 McKnight Artist Fellowship, and a 2005 Princess Grace Award in choreography.  TU Dance company founders Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands were named "2005 Artists of the Year" by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  

TU Dance

Host to 2015 McKnight International Choreographer Residency

April Sellers

2011 Choreography Fellow
 

Photo credit: Warwick Green

April Sellers has developed a unique, emotive approach to modern dance as dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of The April Sellers Dance Collective, which she founded in 2002. Her dance transforms life's mundane moments into physical expressions of the struggle to be human. Layering modern-dance technique within everyday gestures and text-based narratives, Sellers creates dance that holds up a magnifying glass to raw and rarified emotions. 

Sellers's past works have explored such diverse topics as women's sexual identity (In Her Place, 2000), the cultural and personal rituals of loss (Unveiling Grace, 2003), and the vulnerability of the material body (The V Project, 2007). Her work has been performed at the Walker Art Center, Minnesota Fringe Festival, Red Eye Theater, and Bryant Lake Bowl. In 2002, The April Sellers Dance Collective was awarded an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. Sellers's work with choreographer Judith Howard on House of Big Love won a Minnesota SAGE Award for Outstanding Performance in 2006. She has also collaborated with poets, painters, filmmakers, and chefs to present groundbreaking works in such spaces as galleries, rooftops, bowling alleys, gardens, and parks. Notably, Sellers has been featured as a dancer in original works by many artists including Laurie Van Wieren, and John Munger.  

In early 2011, Southern Theater commissioned two works for the Tandem series of independent choreographers (Instructions to a Fancy Pack and Acceptable Doses, 2011). Her future works will continue to tell stories of humanist expression through movement and text, but will focus more intimately on the subjectivity of the dancers and their alternate points of view. In particular, her use of hyperbolic emotions will aid in the exploration of the female image in popular culture. 

Minneapolis-based since 1997, Sellers moved to Minnesota after graduating with a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University. 

For more info, visit her site.

Ananya Chatterjea

2012 Choreographer Fellow

Ananya Chatterjea is dancer, choreographer, dance scholar, and dance educator, who envisions her work in the field of dance as a “call to action” with particular focus on women artists of color. She is the Artistic Director of Ananya Dance Theatre, a company of women artists of color committed to the intersection of artistic excellence and social justice. She is also Director of the Dance Program and Professor of Theater Arts and Dance in the University of Minnesota.
 
Ananya is the recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Artist Fellowship for Choreography. She was named "Best Choreographer" by City Pages (2007) and has received awards from the BIHA (Black Indian Hispanic Asian) Women In Action organization, the MN Women’s Political Caucus, the 21 leaders for the 21st Century Award from Women’s E-News, and was honored by the Josie Johnson Social Justice and Human Rights Award, for her work weaving together artistic excellence, social justice, and community-building.
 
Recent engagements include performances at Festivale Danca Indiana de America de Sul in Campinas, Brazil; Indigenous Contemporary Dance Festival at National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque; and the Norwegian Theater Academy, Oslo (2012); an artist residency at the New Waves Institute in Trinidad (2011); performances at the World Dance Event at NYC’s Dance Theater Workshop (2010); the keynote address and performance at the 2009 International Conference of Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed (2009); teaching and performance at Bates Dance Festival (2008); performances at Erasing Borders Festival (NY, 2008); teaching at the American Dance Festival (2008); and performances at the O’Shaughnessey’s Women of Substance Performance Series (2008). Her choreographic project Tushaanal/fires of dry grass (Sept 2011) was reviewed as “an intricately wrought yet wholly powerful work” that “alternately shimmers and scorches with fervent intensity” (Star Tribune, 9/9/11) and received enthusiastic ovations from audiences.

Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy

2012 Choreographer Fellow

RANEE and APARNA RAMASWAMY are Artistic Directors, Choreographers, and Principal Dancers of Ragamala Dance, acclaimed as one of the Indian Diaspora’s leading dance ensembles. They are disciples of legendary Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer Alarmél Valli. Inspired by the philosophy, spirituality, mysticism, and myth of their South Indian heritage, Ranee and Aparna’s work retains roots in this collective history while carrying the classical dance form of Bharatanatyam into the 21st century. They see the classical form as a dynamic, living tradition with vast potential to convey timeless themes and contemporary ideas.

Ranee and Aparna’s work has been supported by the NEA, National Dance Project, Japan Foundation, USArtists International, and a Joyce Award; commissioned by the Walker Art Center and American Composers Forum; and toured extensively, highlighted by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., American Dance Festival in Durham, NC, Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and National Centre for Performing Arts in Mumbai, India. In 2011, they were jointly named “Artist of the Year” by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

RANEE has been a master teacher/performer of Bharatanatyam in the U.S. since 1978. Since her first cross-cultural collaboration with poet Robert Bly in 1991, followed by her founding of Ragamala in 1992, she has been a pioneer in the establishment of non-Western dance traditions in the Twin Cities and in pushing the boundaries of Indian classical dance on the global scene. Among her many awards are 14 McKnight Fellowships, a Bush Fellowship, an Artist Exploration Fund grant from Arts International, the 2011 McKnight Foundation Distinguished Artist Award.

APARNA has received three McKnight Fellowships in Dance and Choreography, a Bush Fellowship, an Arts and Religion grant funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, two Jerome Travel Study Grants, and an Artist Exploration Fund grant from Arts International. Her choreography and performance have been described as “a marvel of buoyant agility and sculptural clarity” (Dance Magazine), “thrillingly three-dimensional,” and “an enchantingly beautiful dancer,” (The New York Times). In 2010, Aparna was the first Bharatanatyam dancer/choreographer to be named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch”.

Related

• Ragamala Dance
• USA Fellow: Ranee Ramaswamy

Carl Flink

2012 Choreography Fellow

The artistic director of Minneapolis/St. Paul based movement theater Black Label Movement (BLM), choreographer Carl Flink’s dancemaking is recognized for its intense athleticism, daring risk taking, and humanistic themes. Institutions that have presented/commissioned his choreography include the Bates Dance Festival, TED, TEDx Brussels, Theater Latté Da (Minneapolis, MN), the Chicago Humanities Festival, The Minnesota Orchestra, Company C Contemporary Ballet (San Francisco, CA), and Same Planet Different World (Chicago, IL), as well as, dance programs such as the University of Illinois, Stanford University, the University of Iowa, Mount Holyoke, and the University of Kansas.

Flink completed a research collaboration with biomedical engineer David Odde at the University of Minnesota Institute for Advanced Study called The Moving Cell Project. In July 2012, Flink joined Odde at The Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, MA to work with scientists on a research technique called “Bodystorming” developed in the Moving Cell Project. This project also includes Flink’s collaboration with Science Magazine correspondent John Bohannon. Flink, Bohannon, and BLM created A Modest Proposal for the 2011 TEDx Brussels with over 1.5 million internet views and a presentation for TED 2012: Full Spectrum entitled The Facts of Life Talk.

A professor of dance at the University of Minnesota, Flink’s grants and awards include a 2008 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Choreography, Twin Cities City Pages 2012 Best Choreographer, a 2008 Boomerang Award recipient, 2011 and 2012 Live Music for Dance MN grants, and a 2010 Ivey Award recipient. During much of the 1990s, he was a member of the Limón Dance Company and Creach/Koester Men Dancing.

Beyond the dance world, he holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and was a staff attorney with Farmers’ Legal Action Group, Inc. from 2001-2004. He raises three glorious daughters with his artistic and life partner Emilie Plauché Flink.