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Native New Yorker Ani Taj is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, music-head, and founder of The Dance Cartel. Ani has choreographed contemporary musicals, plays, concerts, music videos, art parties, flash mobs, and more. She is fueled by her research trips to Brazil and loves to make dances inspired by Carnaval.
...Read moreNative New Yorker Ani Taj is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, music-head, and founder of The Dance Cartel. Ani has choreographed contemporary musicals, plays, concerts, music videos, art parties, flash mobs, and more. She is fueled by her research trips to Brazil and loves to make dances inspired by Carnaval.
Ani’s choreography has been presented with The Dance Cartel at Ace Hotel NY (year residency: OntheFloor), Ars Nova NYC, MAD (Museum of Art & Design), Sleep No More’s Manderley Bar at the McKittrick Hotel, littlefield, Rattlestick Theatre, Glasslands, Art in Odd Places, Espaco Xisto (Salvador da Bahia, Brazil), Kent285, Summer on the Hudson, Dance on the Greenway, NYC Dance Teacher Summit, and DanceNOW’s Raw Festival.
In fall 2013, The Dance Cartel made its West Coast debut at Edward Sharpe’s Big Top and Festival Supreme (LA). Ani's work has also been featured in music videos for Yoko Ono, Reggie Watts, and The Sway Machinery. Ani is a frequent choreographic consultant for theatre, notably for Love’s Labour’s Lost at Shakespeare in the Park (Asst. Choreo), and for Mother Courage and Fun Home in the Fall of 2013 at the Public Theatre.
Upcoming: performance on Conan; OntheFloor at Philadelphia Art Museum. As a performer, Ani has worked with Les Freres Corbusier (DDR – Asst. Choreo.), David Dorfman Dance, Reggie Watts and Tommy Smith, Simone Forti, Jenny Koons, and Liz Swados.
Early in 2013, Ani appeared as one of five dancers featured in the Rite of Spring for Ridge Theater with The Philadelphia Orchestra. As a teacher, Ani strives to impart the joyful, sweaty, shareable aspects of dance, because oh, right, dancing is FUN. She has taught at several of NYC's prominant sance studios, Beyond Dance (NJ), and across public and after-school programs in NYC.
For more information, visit www.TheDanceCartel.com.
Read lessClass Descriptions
Equal parts rigor and silliness, Ani’s class is a high-energy, physically-demanding 90 minutes including an upbeat warm-up, hot conditioning, brief improvisation, and substantial choreography sequences, often from The Dance Cartel’s repertory.
Designed to challenge both trained dancers and enthusiastic novices, the class fuses technical elements from Jazz and Contemporary with hype energy and a low center of gravity. Technical precision and energetic intent are given equal priority, encouraging students to heighten their expressivity and dynamics as well as stretch their physical ability.
The music will be loud, and will sometimes have dirty words. We will make jokes. You will probably sweat. Expect to get your heart rate up, and bring a clean shirt if you need to look cute after class. Sense of play and humor are encouraged, but only if you want to have a good time.