A Pilgrimage to the Water

ANANYA CHATTERJEA (India/US) অনন্যা চট্টোপাধ্যায়‘s 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 domes-tic 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. Ananya is grateful to all the artists and collaborators she works with for their light and practice of excellence, and is thankful to her family for their support.

RAKA MAITRA (CHOWK) (Singapore) is a dancer and choreographer who defies the conventional dichotomy of 'classical' and 'contemporary'. She is a dancer simpliciter; exploring through her work the notion of 'Asian Culture' through her own language of contemporary dance. The basis of her movement is both the martial arts and classical Indian dance. Trained in both classical Odissi and Chhaua. Raka was an associate artist with The Substation, from 2007-2011 and co-artistic director from 2020-2021.

Maitra founded Chowk Productions in 2014 after being awarded the Seed Grant by the National Arts Council. Her noteworthy productions include: The Hungry Stones (2011) Circular Ruins (2012) Khayyams Rubaiyat (2013)The Blind Age (2014), The Second Sunrise (2016), from: The Platform (2017), The Pallavi Series (2016-2021), Variations on a Theme (2021), These Brief Encounters (2021), Yahi (2022).

Her works have been regularly commissioned by The Esplanade, Singapore and have traveled extensively abroad, including- The centenary celebration of Visva Bharati university Santiniketan, Melkweg in Amsterdam, Les Hivernales in Avignon, 10 days in the island at Tasmania and the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C.

VANGELINE (France/US) is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in Japanese butoh. She is the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute (New York), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese butoh while carrying it into the twenty-first century.

With her all-female dance company, Vangeline’s socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. Vangeline is the founder of the New York Butoh Institute Festival, which elevates the visibility of women in butoh, and the festival Queer Butoh. She pioneered the award-winning, 15-year running program The Dream a Dream Project, which brings butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York State. Her choreographed work has been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, France, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Vangeline is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Dance in Process residency and the winner of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere (a work that began as an artistic commission from Surface Area Dance Theatre with support from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund UK); the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award as well as the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London. Her work as an educator, choreographer, and curator has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, Japan Foundation, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, Robert Friedman Foundation, and Asian American Arts Alliance.

Vangeline’s work has been heralded in publications such as the New York Times (“captivating”) and Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”) to name a few.

Widely regarded as an expert in her field, Vangeline has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, and Princeton University (Princeton Atelier). Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, "The Letter" (2012-Lionsgate).

In recent years, she has been commissioned by triple Grammy Award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus). She is the author of the critically-acclaimed book: Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. Her work is the subject of CNN’s “Great Big Story” "Learning to Dance with your Demons.” She is also featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12 : Why We Dance).