Macias giving a paper presentation while dancing.
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Evangelina A. Macias
Aamskapipikuni Blackfeet & A'aninin GrosVentre (she/her/hers) Evangelina Macias is an Indigenous dance maker and dance scholar. As a person of Aamskapipikuni, A'aninin, Black/Afro, and Mexican American immediate lineages, Macias' dance work is grounded in Indigenous world views and pedagogies. Through dance, she works through identity, gender, sexuality, embodied histories, connections with land and the more than human. Macias' scholarship has critically engaged with gender and sexuality through Indigenous Dance, specifically looking to the ways that practices of the Native American Fancy Shawl Dance, and Indigenous Burlesque and Pole dance serve as sites of defiance and gender expansive being against colonial structures of gender, violence, and dispossession. Macias holds a Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California Riverside, and a BFA in Dance with a Modern Emphasis from Utah Valley University. Currently based in Nipmuc, Pawtucket, and Massachusett homelands and territories, Macias is the Helaine B. Allen and Cynthia L. Berenson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Brandeis University. Macias is trained in many dance forms and techniques but primarily moves and works from modern dance techniques, Native American Fancy Shawl dance, Flow Movement (Marlo Fisken), and Pole dance techniques complemented by intuitive movement work (Carmine Black). In teaching and facilitation, Macias draws from Native Indigenous pedagogy as learned from elders, Indigenous dance mentors, Native communities, and her own research. Scholarly Research Macias' current research looks to the Native American Fancy Shawl dance as a site of gender defiance and gender expansive being for women and gender diverse peoples. Her research traces histories, the emergence, iterations, and contemporary practices of Fancy Shawl Dance. Her research for her manuscript in process is currently supported by the by the Helaine B. Allen and Cynthia L. Berenson postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University. Dance Making & Teaching Macias is a dance maker who works activate embodied histories, stories, and contemporary lived experiences as a source of inquiry for embodied research and creative work. Her dance making and pedagogy center Indigenous experience, perspectives, and ways of knowing, while emphasizing practices of safety, care, noticing, deep sensing, and interconnectedness between the human and more than human. Her methodology is informed by her community teaching, dance training, performance experience, and lifelong connection to Fancy Shawl Dance and Powwow. Macias' work as performer and dance maker has been presented and performed in Northern and Southern California, Utah, and Vancouver BC. As a dance teacher, Macias has developed and taught practice & lecture/practice courses at Brandeis University and the University of California Riverside. Macias has guest lectured, taught masterclasses, and facilitated dance experiences for campus groups, programs, and courses including: Queer Academics and Activism through Brandeis University, University of Utah Character Dance Ensemble, Native American Student Programs at UC Riverside, the Gathering of the Tribes Summer Residential Program, and Utah Valley University Dance. Throughout her teaching experience, Macias has also worked with Indigenous communities including: Sherman Indian High School in Riverside CA, Title VI Lil Feathers Program in Salt Lake City UT, the Indian Health Services San Francisco CA. Macias has participated in creative collaborative work including: the Return Dance Project Utah (2022), Dancing Earth and Vni Dansi for the Talking Stick Festival in Vancouver BC (2018). Affiliations Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center (WSRC) Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) Dance Studies Association (DSA) House of Glitz (headed by RainbowGlitz of Virago Nation) |