Ananya Dance Theatre

"a gemstone in the fire"
Pioneer Press, 2005

[short quote from one of the premiere speeches]
2025

Since 2005, Ananya Dance Theatre has been hailed in our community for our annual performances: 

And Ananya Dance Theatre is so much more than our annual premiere of original dance theatre. 

Our ensemble of artists are creating and building and imagining and teaching and convening and gathering, all year round.

And we need you to be a part of our work, all year round.

It takes $600,000 for Ananya Dance Theatre to offer our ongoing opportunities for embodied connection: performance, events, and classes. 

2025 BY THE NUMBERS

• 160 hours of movement classes for students of all ages
• 9 events/workshops (including our annual Summer Intensive!)
• 780 hours of rehearsal for our 2025 premiere, "Swapnō Jhnāp: Dream Jumping."
• 2 performances of "Swapnō Jhnāp: Dream Jumping" at the O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, for an elated audience of 733. 
• National touring of 2024's "Antaranga: Between You and Me" and "Swapnō Jhnāp."
• Employed 23 artists (all but one from Minnesota!), and provided access to free primary health care for our ensemble of nine dancers. 

We invite you to join us in a ongoing, monthly contribution.

EVERY MONTH:
Support Dance. Support Justice. Support Our Community.

Whether you choose to give $5 or $10 or $50 – 
your gift is your voice,
raised in support of sustainable pay for artists
and a more just future. 

If you prefer to make a one-time donation, please do it here at GiveMN!

---

Ananya Dance Theatre is an ensemble company of transnational feminist professional dance artists. 

We create original contemporary dance theater at the intersection of artistic excellence and social justice. 

For 20 years we have worked to dismantle hierarchies and build liberation, inspired by the lives and dreams of BIPOC women and femmes around the globe. 

Read more about Ananya Dance Theatre's history and aesthetic.

---

Ananya Dance Theatre Values

• Reach Out in Solidarity with Global Liberation Struggles
• Reach In for Intersectional Justice
• Practice with Rigor & Excellence
• Center Interconnected Relationship
• Build Feminist Ensemble 
• Uplift Difference and Aesthetic/Cultural Specificity

We are located on and pay tribute to Mni Sota Makoce, 
the unceded homelands of the Dakote Oyate and the Objibwe peoples. 
We stand in solidarity with Native and Black communities, 
whose land and labor are crucial in sustaining this land on which we dance.

Since June 2018, our convening, teaching, and rehearsal home has been the Shawngram Institute for Performance & Social Justice located on University Avenue (Lexington/Snelling) in St. Paul. 

An evening image of our home on University Avenue.