Biography
Anya is a queer cis-gender white woman who dances, makes dances, and teaches dance in multiple contexts. Collaboration and activism are central to her artistic practice. She is originally from Alaska and is currently based in Colorado, USA.
Anya believes in dancing with the bodies that we have in order to cultivate radical aliveness.
Anya has worked with and/or performed for Sara Shelton Mann, Nancy Stark Smith, Karen Nelson, Leslie Seiters, Eric Geiger, Makisig Akin, Karen Schaffman, Justin Morrison, and Ishmael Houston-Jones among others. She teaches/facilitates contact improvisation, improvisation, contemporary dance, and somatics nationally and internationally within festivals, institutions, and communities including recently in Guatemala, Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, and Hungary.
Anya approaches contact improvisation as a fundamentally queer research based form of inquiry, survival, and thriving. Anya holds an MFA in Dance Theatre, is an Assistant Professor of Dance at University of Colorado Boulder, studied the Feldenkrais Method® with Elizabeth Beringer, and ongoingly organizes/produces experimental dance.