danah bella (Artistic Director) is a choreographer/dancer/educator/ Yoga instructor/Reiki Practitioner. Her works explore the interaction and interplay of corporal, psychic, and social spaces through and with movement. In danah’s work the body becomes the primary tool to investigate how we produce/interpret knowledge and signify our sense of being in the world.
photo by Patrick Vickers
She received her MFA in Performance from the Ohio State University and her BA in Dance from the University of California, Santa Barbara where she studied under such distinguished artists as Bebe Miller, Tere O’Connor, Christopher Pilafian, and Jerry Pearson. danah has performed with Santa Barbara Dance Theatre, Umoja Dance, Pearl Ubungen Dancers and Musicians, Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre and Dancing Earth. In 2004 she founded d a n a h b e l l a DanceWorks, a contemporary dance company based in Southwest Virginia, with long time collaborator Salvador Barajas. Her work has been presented in festivals throughout the country including the Cool New York Festival in New York, the United States of Asian America Festival in San Francisco, and the Bates Dance Festival in Maine, as well as in Mexico and Italy. Her teaching credits include ProDanza Italia, Bates Dance Festival, Monterey Dance Fest and the American College Dance Festival; she is currently on faculty in the Department of Dance at Radford University.
S. Barajas (collaborator) is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher based in the emerging post-NAFTA border zone of Southwest Virginia. His work explores the interplay between visual culture, globalization and decolonial thought. His sound work has been presented in dance festivals and galleries throughout the United States. He is currently conducting research on two collaborative documentaries that look at how Latina/os immigrants are redefining the idea of Appalachian cultural identity.
Daniel Barber, company photographer
dancers: Laura Barber, Meghan Brantingham, Heather Brooks, Sarah Hunter King
apprentices (Radford University majors in Dance): Samantha Hopkins, Alyssa Moser, Emily Lee, Ali Padgett, Caitlin Ressegue, Caitie Potosnak
