Get to know our wonderful Duke Arts Create instructor, Chania Wilson, through our “Meet the Intructor” Q&A series. A Raleigh, NC native, Chania holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina Greensboro and recently earned her MFA in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis from Duke University.
Chania leads our Modern Fusion Dance workshops, bringing her movement style and deep training to the Duke and Durham communities. Currently, she is a board member and dancer of Black Box Dance Theatre. She was a 2023 Artist in Residence for North Carolina Dance Festival and premiered her new work, “For The Mind” in November 2023 in Duke’s November Dances and the NC Dance Festival in January. She started her dance company, Nine Movement Collective, December 2023.
Chania is one of many Duke Arts Create instructors—local artists from Durham and the surrounding area who lead hands-on arts workshops for Duke students, faculty, and staff, open to all skill levels throughout the academic year. Duke Arts Create also offers select workshops that are open to the public.
Read the Q&A below to learn more about Chania Wilson’s art practices, inspirations, and experiences with Duke Arts Create!
I am a Modern dance practitioner and artist. I have trained in many forms; however, Modern offers an openness to merge my inspirations from all of the forms and bring them forward. I appreciate the ability to transparently show my humanness and the palate it offers for others to do the same.
I dance because it continuously teaches me and requires me to be present and acknowledge how I am evolving as a person. In teaching especially, I leave with more knowledge than I came with. I can come up with a thorough plan for class, and it completely transforms every class because of the dancers that are present. Dance requires me to be malleable, to be an active listener, and has the ability to slow time in a way that I usually can’t afford in day-to-day life. That slowness is a privilege that I couldn’t live without.
I enjoy teaching for Duke Arts Create because of the mix of students that come to take classes. I appreciate how willing and open to new experiences all of the participants are and the underlying motive to just move! There are no requirements to get better, be the best, or train, but to be present with each other. I always leave feeling refreshed, reminded of the gift of movement and community.
My day-to-day life is hectic as I am the Artistic Director of my dance company, a Company Choreographer at a studio in Wake Forest, and prepping for the semester as an adjunct professor at NC Central University. My life is filled with choreographing and facilitating community building for dancers in the Raleigh/Durham area. When not dancing, I like to spend time with my dog Mozzy and relax with my friends and family. Balance is difficult, but I am constantly creatively fed through my work, and that keeps me going.
I am a Raleigh native and have been around Durham since my mom is a NCCU alumna. Being a student at Duke has immersed me in the vibrant dance and artist community here. I find new things here, like local classes, art pop-ups, and exhibits that expose me to how alive art is in Durham.
Keep up with Chania on Instagram→
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