Career Beginnings.

Brooklyn-born dancer-choreographer, educator, and artist organizer, Alanna Morris began their dance career as a company member with TU Dance (St Paul, Minnesota) under artistic directors Toni Pierce-Sands and Uri Sands. From 2007-2017 they were featured in works by Kyle Abraham, Gioconda Barbuto, Camille A. Brown, Ronald K. Brown, Greggory Dolbashian, Katrin Hall, Francesca Harper, Dwight Rhoden, and Uri Sands. In 2020 they served as the company's Artistic Associate, offering administrative and artistic guidance to the company. For over 10 years Alanna spearheaded youth dance education at TU Dance, developing the current curriculum for the youth dance program for ages 5-9 years old.

Awards & Recognition.

In 2017 Alanna left TU Dance to further develop her creative voice. In 2018 they were named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch!" In 2019, Minneapolis City Pages’ Artist of the Year and Best Choreographer for their solo, “Yam, Potatoe an Fish!”  The project also made Minneapolis’ Star Tribune’s Best of Dance in 2018. Alanna is the recipient of fellowships from The McKnight Foundation in Dance (2015), Choreography (2021) and Springboard Danse Montréal (2022). In 2022, Alanna Morris’ Black Light a re:Search performance was named Best of 2022 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Travel & Research.

Alanna first received a travel/study grant from the Jerome Foundation in 2016 to participate in the New Waves! Festival in Port of Spain, Trinidad, W.I. This program is an international community of dance and performance artists and forum for exchange on contemporary dance and performance directed by Makeda Thomas. For more on this program go here. Escavating Afro-Caribbean dance, history and culture, she made annual visits to Trinidad from 2017-2019 as an artist-in-residence with Art On Purpose, directed by Jamie Philbert, participating in a range of cultural workshops and community engagement. For more on this program go here.

Alanna has traveled twice to the Republic of Benin. First, in 2020 to study egúngún masquerade as part of the Vodun Hwendo Tour, alongside the Rada people of Trinidad & Tobago and as guest of His Royal Majesty Dada Daagba Hounon Houna II. For more on this pilgrimmage go here. Second, in 2023 to research divine feminine warrior hood, participating in The Imperial Corps Agoodjié of the African Diaspora, founded and hosted by Dr. Dowoti Désir, HRM Queen Mother Sêmévo 1st. For more on this program go here.

Most recently, in 2023, Morris completed the 4th edition of creación / reflexión / cuerpo, studying nhaka technique/praxis—a “cartography of the animist body and radical black african presences,”—with Nora Chipaumire in Barcelona, sponsored by AfricaMoment. For more on this program go here.

Choreography & Performance.

“Yam, Potatoe an Fish!,” Morris’ solo tour de force which initialized her value of anthropological research, was conceptualized while in residency at Trinidad’s East Yard campus in Arima. It premiered at Minneapolis’ Off-Leash Area’s Art Box in 2018, enjoying a sold-out run. The project was then presented at the OffSet Dance Fest, directed by Belinda McGuire Dance Projects at The Mark O'Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY in 2019.

Alanna’s choreography has been commissioned by TU Dance, Springboard Danse Montréal, Minnesota Dance Theatre, Penumbra Theatre, Children's Theatre Co., the Dance Department at Carleton College, Impact Living Christian Center (Mpls), Calvary Baptist Church (Mpls), The Cowles Center for Dance, The Great Northern Festival and Northrop. For more on her choreography go here.

Morris is developing a thesis around the divinity of black-ness and the eternal validity of the soul (Seth), being researched in phases over multiple years through collaborative solo performance and residency. Its last presentation as research performance was co-presented by the Great Northern Festival, the Cowles Center for Dance, and Northrop (Mpls) in February 2022 for in-person and live stream audiences. For more on this project go here. (passcode “BLRS2023.”)

Teaching.

A highly sought-after educator, Alanna provides world-class, wholistic dance education that is culturally rich, intellectually inquisitive, and spiritually sensitive for children, youth, and adults. In Spring 2021 they joined the dance faculty at Bard College as a Guest Teaching Artist through Gibney Dance (NY), from 2021-2024 a Visiting Professor of Dance at Carleton College (MN) and joins the faculty of Hamline University in Fall 2024. For more on Alanna’s classes go here.

Community development.

Alanna is the Artistic Director of I A.M. Arts, founded in 2017 as a fiscally-sponsored project of Springboard for the Arts to sustainably provide opportunities for the development and presentation of new dance work and international collaborations, educational and community-development initiatives. For more on our community development programs go here.

Touring.

Alanna co-created and toured Let The Crows Come with Ashwini Ramaswamy and Collaborators, a 60-minute work for three dancers with live music, from 2019-2024. Evoking mythography and ancestry, this piece uses the metaphor of crows as messengers for the living and guides for the departed, exploring how memory and homeland channel guidance and dislocation. For highlights from this project go here.

In January 2023, Morris premiered Invisible Cities, directed by Ashwini Ramaswamy, a collaborative reimagining of Italo Calvino’s metaphysical novel, interweaving cultural perspectives with a dynamic group of dance artists—Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy (Bharatanatyam), Berit Ahlgren (Gaga), Alanna Morris (Modern/Afro diasporic), Joseph Tran (Breaking)—alongside illustrations by Syrian visual artist, Kevork Mourad, who creates Invisible Cities’ interactive, immersive projections in real time. For tours to begin in 2025, go here.

Entrepreneurship.
Alanna reached her pinnacle year in 2023, and heeding the call to shift, she has begun to package her gifts, skills, talents, and abilities into a mission-driven business to improve the health & wellness outcomes for individuals and strengthen organizations to connect more deeply with and make a lasting impact on their communities. Roots and Wings LLC is home to the Roots and Wings Institute and provides somatic, embodied practice for healers and professional dancers and top tier arts & cultural program management for creatives and organizations. To work with Alanna go here.

Gratitude.

Alanna is a proud graduate of The Juilliard School (with academic honors) and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (NYC). She thanks many mentors and teachers, ancestors, family and colleagues for inspiring her to realize her dreams and to make her dreams a possibility!

And as we say at I A.M. Arts: ”Let the circle be unbroken”

WORK SAMPLE OF CHOREOGRAPHIC / PERFROMANCE PROJECTS (2019-2021)
Includes: “Yam, Potato an Fish!” and Black Light re: Search [Part 1]
5 min sample

DANCER REEL (2016-2017)

click on photo to watch video reel