Marielis Garcia
Assistant Professor, Ballet, Contemporary, Digital, and Interdisciplinary Art Practice, Choreography
School of Dance
Email Address: mwgarcia@uncg.edu
Education
City College of New York, MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice, 2018-2020
- Connor Incoming Scholarship Fellow
Marymount Manhattan College, BFA in Dance (Minor in Education), 2003-2007
Biography
Marielis Garcia a Dominican American dancer, choreographer, and educator. While pursuing and receiving her MFA at City College of NY (2018-2020), in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice, she presented two shows. The first was a self-produced work at Judson Memorial Church entitled “At the Cusp of One Thing and Another” which was based on the fluidity of gender identity and had 27 performers. The second is a work supported by a CUNY Dance Initiative space grant where she had the opportunity to create “Amass” at Aaron Davis Hall. Both works were interdisciplinary with live music, visual art, and dance. She believes highlighting these works is important because they are representative of her interests as a choreographer and educator. Marielis believes in challenging presentational spaces and creating large scale dance performances that engender a sense of impermanence and belonging. In the last three years she has received Ballet Hispanico’s Instituto Coreografico residency, Alvin Ailey’s New Directions Choreography Lab residency, and was named a UNCSA
Choreographic Fellow. Other awards and projects include, a Faculty Student Research Grant from The University of Maryland, a City Corps Artist Grant Recipient in 2021, and she has received 5 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement grants. In 2017 she received an UpStream Residency from Kaatsbaan International Dance Center and created a new work through a Dance Initiative Residency at The LaunchPad in CO. Additionally she received a Dance Spoleto Residency Award from La MaMAaTheater to present a new work in Spoleto, Italy. Marielis’ work ‘Possibilities of Dialogue’, an ongoing collaboration with David Norsworthy, debuted at Toronto’s North York Arts Center in 2019, and will have an international tour in 2023. Marielis has danced with Brian Brooks, Stefanie Batten Bland, Peter Kyle, and Helen Simoneau among others, and she frequently collaborates with visual artist Madeline Hollander.
Courses Taught
- Career Strategies for Artists and Entrepreneurs
- Contemporary Technique
- Dance Repertory/Process
- Ballet Technique
- Dance Composition
- Exploration and Improvisation
Scholarly Creative/Research Activity
Marielis Garcia, from 2020 through 2023 was the Visiting Assistant Professor- Dance Artist in Residence within the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland. She is a Dominican American dance artist who has performed and toured with Brian Brooks (NY), Stefanie Battan Bland (New York, NY), Helen Simoneau (Winston-Salem, NC), Peter Kyle Dance (NY), iKapa (Cape Town, SA), and Douglas Dunn and Dancers (NY), among others. She received her MFA in Digital and Interdisciplinary Art Practice from City College of New York. Her graduate thesis here, then & now was a live streamed performance that investigated the ways documentation and live performance coexist.
Marielis’ work has been presented both nationally and internationally. She has taught dance, choreographic practices and interdisciplinary digital practices at Rutgers University (NJ), North Carolina School of the Arts (NC), Howard Community College (NC), Guttman College (NY), among others.
Professional Affiliations:
- Member of Dance Artists National Collective
- Dance Lab New York, 2022
- Artistic Advisor, Judson Memorial Church Arts Wednesday
- Writer for the Gibney Journal, Editor Eva Yaa Assantewaa
- Curated A Test Drive: featuring 4 artists showing their pandemic practices; Dec. 2020
- Associate Special Programs Curator, MoMA, Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done, Fall 2018
Awards / Recognition:
- UNCG Dean’s Research Initiative Fund Recipient 2024
- Performed in Madeline Hollander’s Hyrdro Parade, noted in the NY Times 2023
- Teaching & Learning Transformation Center, “Arts for all” Initiative grant recipient, 2023
- University of Maryland, Arts and Humanities Technology grant recipient 2022
- Ballet Hispánico’s, Instituto Coreográfico Resident, created Temporal, Performed by Ballet
- Hispánico on Little Island Aug. 18, 2021
- Faculty Student Research Grant for a new dance film Subject to Change, the Graduate School,
- University of Maryland
- Alvin Ailey, New Directions Choreography Lab recipient, 2021
- Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Creative Engagement Grant recipient, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022
- Space Grant Recipient, CUNY Dance Initiative, 2018-2019
- Grant Recipient, Morrison-Foerster Foundation, 2017
- Choreographic Residency, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston Salem, NC, Summer 2017
- UpStream Residency, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Tivoli, NY, Spring 2017
- Dance Initiative Residency, The LaunchPad, Carbondale, CO, Spring 2017
- Dance Spoleto Residency Award, La MaMA Theater, Spoleto, Italy, Summer 2014
Choreographic Productions:
- 2024 NC Choreographer’s Residency Performance
- 2024 Residency at Greensboro Project Space
- 2023 Toured internationally with Possibilities of Dialogue
- 2023, Faculty Dance Concert, University of Maryland
- 2022, Un Espectro Real, world premiere, Kogod Theater, (MD) concept and direction (Postponed, Due to Covid)
- 2021, Interfacing, world premiere, Austin Arts Center, (CT), concept, direction, performance
- 2021, Love Letters/encanto, world premiere, Times Square (NY), concept, direction, performance
- 2020, here, then & now, world premiere, Digital Performance, concept, direction, performance
- 2019, At the Cusp of One Thing and Another, world premiere, Judson Memorial Church, concept, direction, performance
- 2018, Amass, Aaron Davis Hall (NY), concept, direction, performance
- 2018, Amass, world premiere, Judson Memorial Church, concept, direction, performance
- 2017, Fact of Being Carried On, Signal Gallery (NY), concept, direction and performance
- 2017, Punct, Garment Arts Alliance (NY), concept, direction and performance
- 2016, Fists and Starts, Triskelion Arts (NY), concept, direction and performance
- 2016, 30Dance Shorts, Monthly Digital Premieres, concept, direction and performance
- 2015, Acts of Peace, Several Locations (NY), concept and direction
- 2014, Chimera, La Mama’s Spoleto Dance Theater (Italy), concept, direction and performance