The Anata Project is a contemporary dance company based in San Francisco and founded on the principles of mindfulness and embodiment. At its core is the concept of anata, a Tibetan Buddhist word that translates as egolessness (or the ever-changing nature of the formless mind).
The Project is currently comprised of five dancers and Artistic Director/Founder, Claudia Anata Hubiak. The company’s mission is to unite dance with mindful action, creating performances and films that look into the courageous workings of the unguarded human experience.
As a dance-maker, Hubiak strives to use movement technique as a physical embodiment of the active and fluid mind. Collaboration with composers and visual artists is a key element of her work, employing rhythm and breath as the backbone for the movement itself, and aiming for an honest sense of vulnerability, the notion that dance is embodying a real human life in all its joy and chaos.
Over the past six years, The Project’s work has been presented throughout the Bay Area at venues including the ODC Theater, the Garage, Z-Space, the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and Dance Mission Theater. Hubiak’s choreography has been described as, “hauntingly glorious” and “true craft…with infectious spirit and a voracious appetite for movement.”
The Project’s commitment to creating genuine connections has launched Anata Wellness, an interdisciplinary outreach program designed to bring mindfulness meditation and dance to students of all economic backgrounds in San Francisco’s school system. The Project’s dancers, who are steeped in the practice of mindfulness as related to movement, lead students in basic meditation, improvisational exercises, and reflection. Ultimately, the program’s 30-minute sessions will serve as a gateway to stress-reduction, confidence, and an increased sense of self-worth.