Rebecca Chaleff
Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2018)
Rebecca Chaleff is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Riverside. She holds a Ph.D. in Theater and Performance Studies from Stanford University with a minor in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Rebecca’s research emerges at the intersection of dance studies, queer theory, and critical race theory to focus on the (dis)embodied transmissions of affective histories in performance. Her current project, Choreographic Legacies, analyzes how choreographically embedded legacies of the Western canon circulate across time to uphold and/or contest the sociopolitical imperatives of European imperialism transnationally. Her writing has been published in TDR/The Drama Review and Performance Research and is forthcoming in Dance Research Journal and the Futures of Dance Studies anthology. In 2017, Rebecca was honored to receive the Centennial Teaching Assistant Award at Stanford; she enjoys teaching introductory and advanced courses in dance and performance studies that encourage creative thinking between dance history and critical theories of race, gender, and sexuality. As a dancer, Rebecca has had the pleasure of performing with GERALDCASELDANCE, Pat Catterson, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company Repertory Understudy Group, Douglas Dunn and Dancers, Molissa Fenley and Company, and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, among others.
Fabiana Marroni Della Giustina
Visiting Scholar (2017-2018)
Fabiana Marroni Della Giustina is a Brazilian Dancer and a theatre arts professor at the Federal University of Brasília/UnB since 2009 in the Department of Arts. She is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Riverside in the Dance Department and has been awarded with a scholarship from the CAPES Foundation. Her research is entitled “The Skin That Overflows Movement – A Research on Dance, People and Objects” which she has been developing since 2015 through the graduate program at the University of Brasília. Fabiana holds an M.A. in dance and education from the same program with a thesis titled “Dancing Playing to Play Dancing” which was published in 2009. She completed her specialization in Educational Psychology and Contexts at Catholica College of Uberlândia/MG in 2005. She concluded a Licentiate Degree in Artistic Education/Theatre Arts in 1999 from University of Brasília/UnB. After graduation, Fabiana served for nine years as an Arts Professor in the Education State Department of the Federal District Government /GDF. At the same time, she was a professor in the theatre department at the Federal University of Uberlândia / UFU (2003-2005). As a dancer, Fabiana has had the pleasure of performing with Basirah – Núcleo de Dança Contemporânea, Cia Márcia Duarte, Alaya Dança, among others.
Her doctorate research has been influenced from the formation of “Collective CoisAzul” that is composed of dancers and a blue bean bag chair.
www.coisaazul.com / #CoisAzul Instagram
fabianamarroni@unb.br
Noriko Karube
Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher (2017-2018)
Noriko Karube is a Japanese Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. She is a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship in Visiting Graduate Researcher Program 2017-2018, sponsored by the Institute of International Education and the Japan-U.S. Educational Commission (Fulbright Japan) and she is affiliated by the Department of Dance at the University of California, Riverside. She is also receiving a Research Grants 2017 of the Institute for the Culture of Travel. Under the support of these sponsorships, she is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation project which will discuss Hula, a native Hawaiian traditional dance, in California.
She received her first BA in Literature (German Literature) in 2006 from the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences 1, Waseda University, and a second BA in Literature (Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture) in 2010 from the School of Culture, Media and Society, Waseda University, after working for one of Japan’s largest international law firms in Tokyo as a secretary for approximately four years. In 2012, she completed her Master’s program and received a degree in Literature (Cultural Anthropology) from Graduate School of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University under the direction of Prof. Masao Nishimura.
Her current research interests are varied such as intangible Cultural Heritage, especially the art of dance and memory, an impact of globalization and tourism on sacred traditions, and authenticity and diversity of hula. As a side project, she has been actively working on the cultural impact of development for telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaiʻi.
Tria Blu Wakpa
President’s Postdoctoral Fellow (2017-2018)
Tria Blu Wakpa is a 2017-2018 President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Dance Department at UC Riverside, where she will work with her faculty mentor, Professor Jacqueline Shea Murphy. Tria will receive her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley in May 2017. Her research focuses on the continuities and contradictions among Native American education, incarceration, and performance in educational and carceral facilities. Tria has recently published articles in The American Indian Culture and Research Journal and Dance Research Journal and served as a guest editor for special issue journals that feature writing by people who are imprisoned. She has also taught a wide range of interdisciplinary and community-engaged courses at public, private, tribal, and carceral institutions. Tria is the founder and co-facilitator for the Race and Yoga Working Group and the co-founder and co-facilitator for the Race and Yoga Conference and Race and Yoga journal. She holds an M.A. from UC Berkeley in Ethnic Studies, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Diego State University, and has decades of training in martial arts and yoga. Tria is grateful to have received support and recognition from numerous sources for her scholarly and creative work including: the Ford Foundation, Fulbright, and Dancing Earth: Indigenous Contemporary Dance Creations.