2025 Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFAEIP) Graduate
Natalia’s MFA Thesis, titled “welding borderlands | soldando las tierras fronterizas,” invites us to witness how our body can be a potent site where individual, familial, and communal experiences and memories can be evoked, accessed, and materialized. Adopting a multimodal approach, her project presented an unforgettable border crossing experience for the campus community and local Latinx communities.
The experience began with a bus ride to the Freedman Center at El Centro Hispano. Upon arrival, the audience was invited to explore an interactive installation within a home-like space filled with artifacts that Natalia had collected during her research. Then Natalia presented her welding process, an original methodology of engaging with bodily memories and cultivating a third space of possibilities, developed by her during her time here. This performance, through layered projection and bodily exploration, blurred the lines between past and present, and between the creative process and the artistic product. The event culminated in a celebratory feast, where shared meals and dialogues fostered a sense of community and connection. This thoughtful curation of experiences allowed all the guests to not only encounter Natalia’s lived experiences and generational memories through her multi-layered bodily performances but also reconnect with their own.
On behalf of the faculty and staff, I would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Natalia on this remarkable achievement and wish her continued success in her future endeavors. It has been truly an honor and pleasure to work with her in the past two years!
Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Duke University Dance Program
The pillars of my creative process are storytelling, vulnerability, imagination, and community. These anchors guide my multimedia artistic approach that allows me to process embodied investigations in a nonlinear fashion. The multiple creative avenues involved in my process include, but are not limited to, dancing, blackout poetry, collaging, writing, painting, photography, and video and sound editing. The traces of my multimedia creative process form a living archive of artifacts that inspire my movement explorations, where I unravel the memories held within the archive of the body.
My artistry is fueled by my Latina identity and my fascination with borderlands, or third/in-between spaces. To explore the borderlands across bodies, materials, generations, and memories, I have developed a practice called welding. welding is a layered investigation of embodied translation that prioritizes how my body immediately reacts to personally or culturally significant artifacts. This is followed by a movement processing of a video recording from the initial exploration. welding is a long-term practice, as it can continue for an unlimited number of layers and can re-engage any artifacts accumulated over time. I am invested in this practice and beyond to make space for diverse Latinx experiences in the United States and to celebrate the vibrancy of our community.
Natalia Cervantes is a proud Latina artist from Manhattan Beach, California. She is currently an MFA Candidate in Duke University’s Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis program. In her research, she positions the body as an archive of generational memory, which she began investigating as an undergraduate student. She earned a B.A. in Psychology and Dance with a minor in Latina/o/x Studies from The American University in Washington, D.C. in 2023. There, she was in the Honors Program and fully immersed in the dance community as a choreographer, performer, and collaborator in over 10 works. She performed at The Kennedy Center as a member of the locking crew, Cinematic, and presented her undergraduate Capstone work, Familia Cervantes, at the American College Dance Association Mid-Atlantic South Region Conference. At Duke University, Natalia developed a layered practice called welding, which opens space through the body in motion to process seemingly intangible borderlands, or third/in-between spaces. She is committed to uplifting Latinx identities, communities, and stories through her roles as a multimedia artist, collaborator, teacher, and storyteller.
The Master of Fine Arts in Dance: Embodied Interdisciplinary Praxis (MFAEIP) is a two-year, full-time, terminal degree program grounded in Duke’s interdisciplinary approach. This program encourages research that responds to urgent global issues and joins critical conversations both within and beyond the arts.
