Waeli Wang

WAELI WANG (she/they) is a movement artist, filmmaker, and educator. They create interdisciplinary contemporary works interweaving personal, familial, social, and artistic contexts to investigate identity. Their research explores the overlap between critical dancemaking and identity to transform and challenge unjust social relations while filling in the gaps of our collective memory to raise social consciousness. She is driven to make work that fuses movement/imagery, figurative/abstract, and the poetic personal.

Wang has toured internationally as a guest artist performing and teaching master classes in modern, contemporary, and aerial dance forms. Their collaborative interdisciplinary choreography and films have shown in internationally curated performances and screenings over the last decade. Her work has been presented by Movement Research Lab, WAXworks, Prelude Festival, 92Y Dance Educators Collective, and Center of Asian American Media. Additionally, they have been commissioned by Built for Collapse, Harunalee Theatre Company, Rogue Co. Dance Company, MashUp Contemporary Dance, and several universities and college dance programs to build work focusing on a visceral and experimental contemporary modern dance vocabulary.

Cultivating community, experiential learning, and a dedication to justice and equity are central to her artmaking practice and teaching philosophy. They believe that incorporating critical cultural and historical perspectives on dance inside of the studio and classroom creates a rich environment in which we can honor all bodies and identities. Transformative justice and regenerative practices within education are areas that are deeply rooted in her work and how they move through the world. Teaching from a space where we can build collective power, collaboration as co-liberation.

Wang holds an MFA degree in Dance from the University of California, Irvine & a BFA in Film Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder. They currently reside on the unceded territories of the Acjachemen, Tongva, and Kizh, also known as Irvine, California.