Anna Powers

Anna M. Powers is best known as cofounder and director of Diversity Dance Workshop, the internationally renowned dance company founded in 1993 and based in Seattle. With its repertoire of social healing messages through dance and music, the program touched international audiences numbering in the millions in a wide range of school and community settings. Anna was born and raised in Palo Alto, California, where she became a member of the Bahá’í Faith in 1972. While living with her family in Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, for nine years she produced commemorative UN events and conferences, concerts, and television and radio programs as well as working with local organizations. Her love of journalism led her to write articles for newspapers including the national paper of Trinidad and Tobago, The Guardian, highlighting social issues. She especially wrote about the importance of educating girls, a Bahá’í principle, where in remote villages, girls were often kept home doing chores.  After returning to the U.S., Anna spearheaded Diversity Dance Workshop with its performances in all age level schools in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, California and Europe. She produced numerous large-scale concerts and other events in Seattle, as well as six concerts for the Bahá’í World Congress in New York in 1992. A jewelry artist since 1972, her jewelry was featured in prestigious retail stores throughout California including Bullocks Wilshire (Beverly Hills), and Nordstrom’s. Today she resides both in Palo Alto, California, and Sweden, her ancestral home.