COLETTE ELOI, Ph.D.  (She/Her/Hers)
Lecturer

Dr. Colette M. Eloi is an award-winning choreographer, scholar, and cultural practitioner specializing in African Diaspora dance, performance, and embodied knowledge systems. An African-rooted dance specialist, she is the Artistic Director of ELWAH Dance & Research and has toured locally, nationally, and internationally as a dancer, choreographer, folklorist, speaker, and guest lecturer. Her interdisciplinary practice integrates dance, music, oral history, and cultural research, with a focus on African-rooted movement traditions and their contemporary expressions.

Dr. Eloi began her career as a professional dancer and independent researcher, performing and touring with numerous African and African Diaspora dance companies, including Nuba Dance Theater, Dimensions Dance Theater, Groupe Petite La Croix, and Emeses (Messengers of the African Diaspora), among others. She has conducted extensive field research throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and across the African continent. Her international work includes Development through the Arts initiatives in collaboration with the National School of the Arts in Haiti; the Conservatory of Beninese Music and Dance in Benin; His Majesty Daagbo Houna Hounon in Benin; the National Theatre of Ghana; and the Center for Black and African Arts and Civilizations in Nigeria. She has also collaborated with arts institutions and community organizations throughout the United States—including programs in Oakland, the Mississippi Delta, Ohio, Oregon, Florida, and New Orleans—as well as in Cuba and Puerto Rico, using the arts as a vehicle for cultural exchange, community development, and enrichment.

An alumna of the University of California, Riverside, Dr. Eloi earned her PhD in Critical Dance Studies, where she was both a Dean’s Distinguished Fellow and a Gluck Fellow. She holds a BA in International Relations and Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Inquiry and Interdisciplinary Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, where her work focused on African-rooted oral traditions. Her honors include the Shellie Theater Award, two grants from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, the New England Foundation Individual Artist Award, the Oakland Cultural Arts Grant, and, most recently, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation Award for New Work.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Eloi has long used dance as a tool for self-actualization and community empowerment. She worked for many years with the Dimensions Rites of Passage Program and served as Department Chair at Laney College. Her teaching is holistic and interdisciplinary, centering students while facilitating embodied learning, cultural analysis, and rigorous training. Drawing on her extensive experience as an artist and scholar, she encourages students to cultivate technical skill while critically engaging questions of identity, history, and community through dance. Her pedagogy fosters joy, bodily awareness, cultural literacy, collaboration, self-reflection, and increased confidence through movement practice.

Dr. Eloi’s scholarship and writing have been published in various venues. Most recently, she completed a collaborative project with anthropologist Dr. Yvonne Daniel that will appear in the 2026 Cambridge Anniversary Edition of The History of the African Diaspora.