ANIKAYA was founded in 2003. ANIKAYA has conducted educational programming, intensive workshops, performance creation and touring in countries around the world. Our collaborators are in the top of their fields both in their home countries and abroad. ANIKAYA founder/director Wendy Jehlen is an artist who embeds herself within the culture where she is working, making deep and lasting connections with students, audiences and collaborators, often leading to long-term projects and creative relationships.

ANIKAYA’s mission is to break down the perceived boundaries between people, cultures and art forms. Our work has so far extended to the US, Benin, Brazil, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Canada, France, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mali and Turkey. ANIKAYA weaves together music, dance and storytelling to create works that pull from the full range of the body’s communicative capabilities. We incorporate traditional forms, internalizing them and then allowing them to reemerge as part of a new movement vocabulary. The result is work that is resonant of deep-rooted traditions, without being bound to any particular genre, place or practice.