MFA in Dance Class of 2023
Join us in celebrating the third cohort to earn Duke’s one-of-a-kind terminal graduate degree in dance practice! The Duke M.F.A. in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFAEIP) supports artists whose creative research connects movement-based knowledge to critical discourses within and beyond the arts.
Artists move through our program with considerable self-direction, but complete significant graduate-level coursework outside of dance per our curricular design. The four artists that we celebrate this year have pursued bold creative projects, each of which reinforces Duke’s commitment to amplifying how artists make dance work across cultures, communities and contexts.
Artists Work Everywhere
This spring, Duke will award terminal degrees in dance practice and performance (M.F.A.) to Brooks Emanuel (he/they), Marika Niko (she/they), Leo Ryan (they/them) and Zhixhuan “Miki” Zhu (she/her). Each of these artists developed movement-based thesis works that explored the political, spiritual and social possibilities that dance enables. Despite their diverse movement lineages and research interests, Miki, Leo, Marika and Brooks truly meshed as a cohort, united through a shared investment in movement experiments that derive value from ritualized repetition. The creative contributions of the MFAEIP class of 2023 reflect the dynamism of its four-member cohort. In singular and exemplary ways, their research evidences:
- the power of dance to inspire social somatic reflection among racial justice organizers and to heal from stresses and strains of justice work (Emanuel)
- the potential of performance to amplify awareness of queertrans labor, beauty and endurance (Ryan)
- the possibility of choreography as a practice of un-learning and re-wilding social interactions to resist oppressive norms (Niko)
- the primacy of ritualized movement as a method of connecting emotion and sensation to spirituality amidst all manner of institutional constraints (Zhu)
In addition to close mentorship from Duke Dance faculty, Miki, Leo, Marika and Brooks engaged in expanded conversations with tertiary faculty advisors from Sanford Law; Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies; Art, Art History, and Visual Studies; and Cinematic Arts. This expanded interdisciplinary research community makes the Duke Dance MFAEIP uniquely positioned to support artists’ diverse cultural lineages and the abundant communities and contexts in which they work.
On behalf of the Duke Dance faculty and staff, we congratulate you on these major accomplishments. We can’t wait to witness what comes next. Well done!
—Sarah Wilbur
Director of Graduate Studies, MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis
Associate Professor of the Practice in Dance
Duke University Dance Program
Brooks Emanuel: Moving New Futures
Brooks pursued his M.F.A. to find the most effective ways for him to combine his dual backgrounds in dance and social justice work. After a decade of dancing and choreographing in New York and Atlanta, Brooks shifted into progressive politics and policy.
Marika Niko: Meshroom
Marika Niko is a choreographer, mover and thinker from Japan. After being a nomad for most of her life ‒ Thailand, U.K., the Netherlands, U.A.E., Japan ‒ she is currently based in the United States. She graduated from New York University Abu Dhabi with a B.A. in Theater and from Duke University with an M.F.A. in Dance: Embodied interdisciplinary Praxis.
Leo Ryan: for public view (twenty-four)
Leo Ryan is an interdisciplinary movement-based performance and video artist originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. As a nonbinary trans artist, much of their work investigates queer and transcorporealities, with a focus on lived queer experiences in the American South.
Zhixhuan “Miki” Zhu: Infinite Infant
Zhu is an artist, movement explorer and spirituality devotee. Born in a traditional Buddhist family, she was fascinated by the occult since an early age, and her dance is inspired by it.