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ANIKAI
founder/artistic director, Wendy Jehlen is a choreographer
of Contemporary Dance, whose work is based in her training in Bharata
Natyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Capoeira, West African dance, American and
European Modern and Contemporary dance styles. Jehlen's choreography incorporates
her training in all of these dance forms.
Much
of her work incorporates texts from around the world. Recent works include
One (2004), an evening-length solo performance on solitude and traveling;
Breathing Space (2003), a collaboration with Japanese choreographer Hikari
Baba; Crane (2002), a twenty-five minute work for six dancers based on
images from Japanese Buddhist poetry; Haaaa (2002), a dance for five dancers
inspired by the experience of childbirth; Midnight (2000), based on a
poem by Sufi saint Jelaluddin Rumi; Job 10 (1999), based on the tenth
chapter of the Book of Job of the Hebrew Bible; and Becoming Fire (1998),
an evening length work for two dancers and five musicians exploring texts
from the Sufi traditions of Iran and South Asia. Another important element
of Jehlen's work is collaboration with Deaf performers and poets. She
is fluent in American Sign Language and uses both the language and aesthetic
of American Sign Language poetry in her choreography, often collaborating
with Deaf artists in the creation of bi-cultural works.
With
composer Nandlal Nayak, Jehlen founded Akhra: The Dancing Grounds, a performance
group which creates and performs experimental, multi-disciplinary works
with artists from all over the world. Jehlen has performed her choreography
throughout the United States, Europe, India and in Japan. She often collaborates
with musicians and has worked with musicians from such diverse musical
backgrounds as Jazz, Turkish and Indian classical and folk music, Afro-Peruvian
percussion and singing, Ghanaian percussion, and Japanese koto and jushchigen,
and with electronic musicians from Asia and the United States.
Jehlen
has received funding and recognition for her choreography from the Artist
Grants Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council (2001, 2003), the
Senior Performing Artist Fellowship program of the American Institute
of Indian Studies (2001), the Ford Foundation/Arts International (1996),
the Puffin Foundation (2001), the Tokyo American Center (2002), and the
National Endowment for the Arts (2005), among others. She has been granted
a 2004-05 Fulbright Award for her project "Women on Stage,"
exploring the changing role and status of women dancers in India and the
United States.
"gorgeous" – Theodore Bale, The
Boston Herald "magic"
– Hindustan, India "works
wonders on the stage" - The Telegraph,
India
"A
journey of discovery...(Jehlen's) dance style is contemporary without
its customary abstractness. The movements had an inbuilt rhythm and mood,
often accompanied by symbolic gestures in sign language...the well choreographed,
tightly knit movements were executed with discipline and professionalism."
-The Hindu “una
suggestiva sequenza di immagini fusa con delicata maestria alla raffinata
danza della bravissima Wendy Jehlen...”
“an expressive sequence of images fused with delicate mastery in
the refined dance of the "bravissima" Wendy Jehlen..."-
La Tribuna, Italy |