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Job Description
Ananya Dance Theatre seeks new candidates to join our Board of Directors! Are you passionate about the intersection of performing arts and social justice, supporting a vibrant Twin Cities art scene, or upholding equitable pay and practices for working "cultural art-ivists"? These would all be great reasons for you to apply to join ADT's Board of Directors. Board members meet 1.5-2 hours bi-monthly (more if serving on a subcommittee), and are expected to show up on behalf of ADT in personally meaningful and resonant ways. In this particular moment, we are very keen on adding a financially-minded person who could fill the role of Treasurer, as well as a lawyer to have as a general voice in the mix. But of course, we look forward to exploring many candidates' qualifications and alignments!
MISSION AND VISION
Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT) is a professional ensemble who artists who create original contemporary dance theater, upholding artistic excellence and communal relevance in social justice choreography. We are transnational feminists, inspired by the lives and dreams of Black and brown communities around the globe. Our work dismantles hierarchies and builds a multi-dimensional movement of arts for social change. As ADT honors and uplifts cultural specificity, we release ourselves from the narrow identity politics that constrain us all from building a liberatory culture. For two decades, ADT has extended beyond conventions of dance-making and performance with the conviction that rigorous artistic practice and layered story-telling can be a methodology of community organizing and civic life engagement. Our work dismantles prescriptive conventions and hierarchies that have come to be entrenched in mainstream culture. We stage choreographies that reveal BIPOC women and femmes in their fullness, through the prism of multiple intersecting stories, highlighting our truths and calls to action. Embodied preparation towards realizing a just and equitable future, and inviting audiences to join in that vision, is a primary goal in our work. Our tagline "people powered dances of transformation" is articulated through four primary streams that invite community to meet themselves and each other with humanity and compassion, and shift mainstream cultural narratives towards justice: 1. Annual premiere of an evening-length original dance theater ensemble work; 2. Workshops, dialogues to build solidarities and healing, and multi-level movement classes; 3. Participatory public art gatherings that invite audiences to embody possibilities of moving together, negotiating space, finding rhythm, and sharing humanity with people they might not know; 4. Artist mentorship, including our NextGen Choreolab, which annually supports a small group of dance artists in the development of their own choreographic processes. We are proud to support our artists, who self-identify as "cultural activists," with equitable wages and access to free primary healthcare. HISTORY Founded by Dr. Ananya Chatterjea in 2005, ADT has premiered 21 new works for the stage and toured to 15+ states and 6 countries, offering classes, workshops, and community events across the country and around the world. In 2018, we completed the Shawngrām Institute for Performance and Social Justice, a former used car showroom that is now our rehearsal studio, teaching space, and administrative home. The Institutes sits at the confluence of the vibrant neighborhoods of Frogtown, Little Africa, Hamline-Midway, and Historic Rondo. As of 2026, ADT employs four full-time staff members, nine .25FTE ensemble members, and multiple independent contractors. We are a primarily grant-funded organization, with a small but growing, committed pool of individual donors. Our annual operating budget is ~$675,000.
CURRENT ORGANIZATIONAL PRIORITIES 1.
Designing, funding, and successfully launching a Yorchhā certification program. 2. Securing sustainable new funding streams, including building lasting relationships with high-resource donors and energizing our monthly giving program. 3. Assessing and expanding our existing accessibility capacities. For more information, please see ADT's website at http://www.ananyadancetheatre.org/ Questions about the opportunity may be sent to eve.schulte@ananyadancetheatre.org (please include "ADT Board" in the subject line).
