In a rapidly shrinking world, it is essential that we come to understand each other's cultures and find commonalities in the tremendous diversity of the societies in which we live. As artists, we strive toward this understanding through sharing our stories with our audiences.
January 2011...ANIKAI GOES TO INDIA!
ANIKAI Dance Company is about to embark on the biggest international tour any contemporary dance company from Boston has ever been on. This is the most extensive tour of India a U.S.-based dance company has been on since 1926 when Ruth St. Denis took her Denishawn Dancers. ANIKAI's eight dancers will travel coast to coast, hitting six cities -- Delhi, Chennai, Kerala, Pondicherry, Hyderabad and Bangalore -- performing fifteen shows in a four week span, January 10th through February 8th. For the people of India to see physically strong, powerful women take the stage and perform viscerally charged, athletic choreography will be a cultural ground-breaking of enormous proportion. In addition to performing, ANIKAI dancers will teach movement workshops in corporation schools (schools for the poorest kids), battered women’s shelters and schools for the deaf, providing access to the art of dance to a demographic nearly forgotten. The news of ANIKAI's arrival is already making front page news throughout India. ANIKAI was featured on the cover on November’s issue of Abhinaya Srinivas in Hyderabad - the biggest monthly theater magazine in India. We already have press conferences lined up in Kerala…and the media blitz there is just beginning.
DANCER / REHEARSAL DIRECTOR DeANNA PELLECCHIA (founding member of ANIKAI – 2005)
WHAT THIS TOUR IS ABOUT TO ME:eating lots of curry. seeing the taj mahal. seeing the vast capacity of my art and knowing that it is so much bigger than me. seeing the moon from the other side. seeing women who have been forsaken and forgotten, smile and cut a rug. bringing joy. bringing my own starbucks coffee. bringin it. entertaining audiences. changing perceptions. changing time zones. changing lives, others and my own. changing clothes, many times a day. defying stereotypes. defying the odds. defying the need for sleep, and air-conditioning. creating wonder. creating a piece of history. creating an inventive way of washing my clothes. signing autographs. signing away the idea that there is anything that separates me from anyone else. dancing my ass off. hugging strangers. relishing hot showers. traveling in planes, trains, tour-buses and automobiles. trusting the unfamiliar. bearing witness. kicking pman’s ass. drop-kicking cultural boundaries. teaching what little I know. learning what the world has to offer. being the pebble. being a ninja. being not in boston in february. being a superstar. being a foreigner. being humbled by beauty. and poverty. being the person who makes our stage manager laugh when she wants to scream and cry (you know I can jayne!). being an ambassador - for my country, for my art, for woman kind. making kids smile. making people think. making myself re-consider what I think I know. making my family proud. making space for possibility. making the world better. one dance. at a time. boo-ya.
thank you!
THANKS to everyone who donated to ANIKAI's India Tour! We met incredible people, saw incredible things, and had the experience of a lifetime.
Relive some of our most amazing moments...check out the ANIAKI BLOG from the tour: click here.
Thank you from all of us, ANIKAI DANCE COMPANY Wendy Jehlen, DeAnna Pellecchia, Neva Cockrell, Danielle DiVito, Pradhuman Nayak, Maki Somekawa, Mila Thigpen, and Terra Weaver
