From the School of Dance, Assistant Professor Kiri Avelar, Associate Professor Joselli Deans, and Assistant Professor Natalie Desch will co-present a session at the National Dance Education Organization annual conference (NDEO) held October 4-6th. This year's theme is "The Power of Movement: Dance Education Traditions and Innovations."
With the session titled, "Dance Histories: Teaching and Learning from Diverse Perspectives," the three dance professors will engage in a critical conversation about their diverse approaches to teaching and learning dance histories as colleagues within the same university dance program. They will delve into their dance lineages—specifically, Dance Theatre of Harlem (Deans), The José Limón Dance Company (Desch), and Ballet Hispánico (Avelar) — as a framework for exploring how they integrate their personal experiences, cultural influences, and embodied knowledge into their current teaching assignments in both undergraduate and graduate dance histories courses. Key issues discussed include the power and production of historical narratives, medicinal and healing approaches to histories, the role of dance in the (silencing of) archives, and the embodiment and choreography of histories. The presenters will draw upon pedagogical strategies rooted in Chicana/Latina feminisms, border(lands) theory, intersectional methodologies, and the concept of "margin to center" as articulated by bell hooks.