Anaka Weiss-Jones was born and raised in Colorado, and began dancing in the Boulder area at age 8, most notably under Jayne Persch at BRIAH Danse. In 2018, she joined in the inaugural year of Ballet Melange’s Trainee Program, where she spent three years training with Elizabeth Shipiatsky, Sergii Sydorskyi & Maureen Breeze. Anaka began her professional career following the 2020 International Ballet Competition in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she was presented with multiple Special Judges’ Awards and was asked to join the Klaipėda State Music Theater in Lithuania for the 2021-2022 season. Upon returning to the States in 2022, she transitioned to a career as a freelance artist. Prominent among Anaka’s work is dancing with Zikr Dance Ensemble, where she has danced since 2022, and served as the company’s Assistant Artistic Director since the spring of 2025. Additionally, she has danced with Boulder Ballet, Connecticut Ballet, Ballet Taos, Neglia Ballet, Minnie Lane, City Dance NY, Dances Patrelle, BRIAH Danse, New York City Emerging Artists Project, Artistic Ventures in Dance (AVID), New Chamber Ballet, theZEWJ, Maureen Breeze Dance Theater, and Dance for Climate.

Anaka is also a co-founder of Rio Hondo Artists’ Residency, an annual dance-based artists residency in Taos, NM, that provides artists with process-oriented space to explore ideas without the pressure of a finished product; aims to foster multi-medium collaboration across artistic disciplines; and includes the community in the arts-making process through free movement workshops, conversations, and programming. RHAR is a 2026 recipient of the Community Arts Fellowship, made possible in part, thanks to support from Taos Center for the Arts, the Harwood Museum of Art, and the National Endowment for the Arts.