{"id":5366,"date":"2020-01-08T11:33:43","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T17:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/?page_id=5366"},"modified":"2023-06-07T08:15:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T13:15:36","slug":"artist-biography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/artist-biography\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Donna Mejia<\/h3>\n

Donna Mejia (Assistant Professor, CU Boulder Theatre and Dance) is a choreographer, scholar, director, and performer specializing in contemporary dance, traditions of the African and Arab Diaspora, and emerging fusion traditions in Transnational Electronica.\u00a0 This genre provides a rich arena for the study of cultural imperialism, gender representation and electronic\/digital globalization.\u00a0 Donna is also an authorized instructor of the Brazilian Silvestre Modern Dance Technique and is a lauded representative of this esoteric study of dance after 20 years of practice.<\/p>\n

For 10 years she was a faculty member at Colorado College and Director of the Colorado College International Summer Dance Festival. For twelve years she served as Managing Director of the award-winning Harambee African Dance Ensemble of CU-Boulder under the amazing leadership of Instructor Emerita Letitia Williams.\u00a0 The Harambee ensemble was awarded the prestigious El Pomar Foundation grant, was featured in the March 1996 issue of Dance Magazine, performed for President Bill Clinton and Nobel Laureate Archbiship Desmond Tutu, is part of the Denver International Airport time capsule, and was hailed as the \u201cBest of Boulder\u201d for 3 years.<\/p>\n

Donna was the Guest Artist in Residence for Smith College Dance 2006 – 2009, and has been awarded residencies at the Naropa Institute, Simon Frasier University (Canada), Mt. Holyoke College, Hampshire College, University of Northern Colorado, University of Chile, Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan), Bucknell University, Earth Dance, Jacob\u2019s Pillow Dance Festival (three years) and the Bates Dance Festival (two years).\u00a0 She was nominated for a Pikes Peak Area Artist award in 2005.<\/p>\n

In October of 2011 she was selected by the Fulbright Association to present the Selma Jeanne Cohen Endowed Lecture for International Dance Scholarship in Dance, notably for her paper “Digital Diasporas and Transnational Dance Communities:\u00a0 The Effects of the Internet on Identity Formation and Collective Cultural Memory.”\u00a0 Her research was also the featured keynote of Syracuse University’s 2012 Symposium on Public Diplomacy.<\/p>\n

Donna completed her undergraduate degree in Business at CU-Boulder, and received her Master of Fine Arts degree on full fellowship from Smith College.\u00a0 She joined the University of Colorado at Boulder as an Assistant Professor of Dance in 2012, and serves as the Director of graduate studies in dance.\u00a0 She is the first professor of tribal\/transnational fusion globally.\u00a0 Donna balances her time teaching and touring throughout the U.S. and abroad, and headlined over 27 international festivals since 2012.\u00a0 She was the featured soloist and choreographer for the 2015 NYC off-Broadway production of 11 Reflections on September, <\/em>and was also performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.\u00a0 Her collaboration with vocalist Mankwe Ndosi was part of the 2015 Women of the World Festival at the Apollo Theatre.\u00a0 She has joined the research and development team of Gaia Bella, the documentary film and performance project directed by Kenji Williams.\u00a0 Her choreographic commissions and performances continue to generate outstanding critical reviews from print and digital media.<\/p>\n

Link to university website: https:\/\/www.colorado.edu\/theatredance\/donna-mejia<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donna Mejia Donna Mejia (Assistant Professor, CU Boulder Theatre and Dance) is a choreographer, scholar, director, and performer specializing in contemporary dance, traditions of the African and Arab Diaspora, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5366","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5366"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6954,"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5366\/revisions\/6954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}