Yuran Choi, She/Her                                                                                                                                                                                    ychoi148@ucr.edu                                                                                                                                                                                                B.A. in Dance, Kookmin University                                                                                                                                                             Yuran Choi is a professional dancer with the Cheongju City Dance Company and a current M.F.A. student in Dance (Choreography) at the University of California, Riverside. She trained at the Korea National High School of Traditional Arts as a national scholarship student, touring Europe with the Arirang Art Troupe, and later earned her B.A. in Dance from Kookmin University with a focus on Korean dance. During her undergraduate studies, she was invited in 2017 to Rutgers University in the U.S., where she presented on arts education practices, performed in Hi K-Dance, and supported master classes as a teaching assistant.

She is a designated trainee of Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 92, Taepyeongmu, and a recipient of several top prizes, including the 2018 Vienna International Competition, the Korean Dance Association, and the Suri Dance Competition. With the Cheongju City Dance Company, she has also performed widely in major national productions and festivals.

Her research focuses on breathing-based practices in Korean dance as an alternative foundation for movement training and choreography, exploring how breath-centered methods can inform contemporary dance creation and pedagogy.

Maryam Malmir, She/Her
maryam.malmir@email.ucr.edu
BS in Pure Mathematics, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
Maryam Malmir is a Contemporary Dancer and Choreographer from Iran. Her works are mostly conceptual, and due to her background in Mathematics, she uses Mathematical patterns as her choreographic language to convey meanings. She has produced her last choreographic piece, The Loop, in Cyprus collaborated with the dancers from Brazil and Colombia with the support of European Union. She has been awarded ISPA, International Society for the Performing Arts, global fellowship 2020,2021 and 2022, IETM, global network of contemporary performing arts, Global Connectors 2023-2027, GCRP, global Cultural Relations Program 2022, ATSA, Arthink South Asia fellowship 2019-2020 and internationale tanzmesse NRW professional visitors 2024.

Cecilia Slongo
cecilia.slongo@email.ucr.edu
BA in Dance Making. University of California, Riverside                                                                                                                    Cecilia is an artist deeply rooted in the philosophy of coexistence, focusing on understanding our humanity as a complex part of a delicate global balance. As the Argentine daughter of Italian immigrants seeking a politically progressive society, Cecilia inherited a strong political awareness that continues to shape her creative and personal worldview. Through her artistic practice Cecilia explores the potentials of dance creation from a perspective that embraces plural identities, cultural memory, and social expression. Cecilia obtained a bachelor’s degree in Dance Making from the University of California, Riverside in 2021. The same year she created a dance film Persequī, exploring collective memory and its residual in the body. The film screened internationally at film festivals such as the Exeter International Dance Film Festival (UK), the Toronto International Women’s Film Festival (Canada), the Berlin International Art Film Festival (Germany), the Sans Souci International Film Festival (USA), and AWARD (Serbia).

Venghour Than

Bio coming soon!