Biography
Dr. Ayo Walker is an Assistant Professor of Critical Dance Studies. As a Performance Studies Practitioner, Choreographer, Dancer, and African American Studies Educator, she positions her work in the field of Dance and Performance Studies within three specific interdisciplinary and generative frameworks. Research-to-Performance, Practice-Based, and Practice-Led. "Through my research, creative work, and pedagogy I urge the much-needed cultivation of a comprehensive cultural dance literacy beyond the dominant Eurocentric perspective in the United States." To this end Dr. Walker has published two manuscripts "Rebalancing dance curricula through repurposing black dance aesthetics" and "Traditional White Spaces Why All-Inclusive Representation Matters" and developed three original paradigms, Entercultural Engaged Pedagogy (EEP), Cariactureography, and Decolonization of the Dancing Body. Entercultural Engaged Pedagogy models for students the importance of valuing the depth and breadth of the knowledge that they bring to the learning process, rather than having their movement experiences positioned in a hierarchy of dance courses privileging an ethnocentric perspective. By prescencing the corporeal existence of iconic literary characters, caricatureography is the practice and performance of embodying these characters representation via danced interpretations of their stories. Decolonizing the dancing body is the undoing of domination by ethnocentric ideology and freeing the body from being dependent on a singular movement practice presenting as the foundation of all dance techniques. Dr. Walker received her BA from San Diego State University, an MA in Dance and Higher Education from NYU Steinhardt, and a PhD in Performance Studies with a Designate Emphasis in African American and African Studies from UC Davis.
Instructional Areas
Theatre, Hip-Hop /Street, Postmodern and Contemporary dance, as well as Afro-Hip Hop and jazz dances.
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Performance Studies, Critical Dance Studies, Critical Race Theory in Dance, Decolonizing Dance Pedagogy, Choreography and Performance.
Degrees
B.A., Drama San Diego State University 2000
M.A., Dance in Higher Education and Professions New York University 2009
Ph.D., Performance Studies University of California, Davis 2016