TANYA CHIANESE
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
“Chianese, 30, draws you along a story arc with a sense of theatrical composition that's rare among choreographers more than twice her age.” (Dance Magazine / Jan 2019)
One of Dance Magazine’s 2019 “25 to Watch,” Artistic Director Tanya Chianese was also recently named by San Francisco magazine as "100 Artists Putting the East Bay on the Map" alongside such individuals as Daveed Diggs from Broadway's Hamilton and Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther. For extensive choreographic credits as the Founder and Artistic Director of ka·nei·see | collective please see company bio here, including endorsements by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Elizabeth Warren surrounding her dance and social justice work. She was the 2017 guest choreographer at San Francisco State University, and honored to be the Guest Speaker at their School of Theatre & Dance's 2017 Graduation Ceremony. Tanya is the Summer Dance Lab Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and in the Bay Area she teaches dance at primarily Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, ODC Dance, LINES Ballet, Roco Dance, Berkeley Ballet Theater, and Ace Dance Academy, Dance Mission Theater, City College of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University. An advocator for dance outreach, Tanya traveled to Guatemala as guest choreographer with JUNTOS Collective in 2018 to perform and teach daily workshops across the country; she taught ballet to visually impaired adults and children in Oklahoma City, OK through a grant funded by Devon Energy in 2010; she directed the Kids on Track outreach program of the San Francisco Trolley Dances in 2012; and she co-taught free dance classes in at-risk, low-income after school programs in Los Angeles, CA in 2006. Most recently Tanya has performed with Rogelio Lopez & Dancers, Garrett + Moulton Productions, Paufve | Dance, and Kristin Damrow & Company. She has worked as an administrator for Oklahoma City Ballet, Epiphany Productions and dance anywhere®. Originally from Los Angeles, CA, she holds a B.F.A. in Modern Dance and B.A. in Art History from the University of Oklahoma.
“When she debuted with 2015’s Cookie Cutter, Chianese, the 29-year-old director of Oakland’s ka·nei·see | collective, already possessed complex abstraction, refreshing humor, and insightful theatricality. Who else could use toilet-paper rolls as props, as in 2016’s Readymade, then about-face to this April’s Nevertheless, a scathing referendum on sexual harassment? Many try, but few succeed like Chianese.” (San Francisco magazine / June 2018)