Acacemic & Field Service

Photo: Da Xu, 2011

Photo: Cathy Opie, 2016

2020-2021

  • Duke Dance Program, Director of Undergraduate Studies (2020-2021)

  • Duke Dance Program,MFA Advisory Committee (2018-present)

  • Duke Dance Program,Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (2020-present)

  • Editorial Reviewer, Choreographic Practice Journal. Publisher: Intellect (UK). (2020-2021)

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2019-2020​

  • Director, Dance Studies Association (2019-2022)

  • Member, Dance Studies Association Finance & Development Committee (2019-2022)

  • Member, Trinity Arts & Sciences Council, Duke University (2019-2022)

  • Member, Trinity Curriculum Committee, Duke University (2019-2022)

  • Member, Ruby Advisory Committee, Duke Arts, (2019-2020)

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2018-2019

  • Editorial review board, Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts. 

  • Guest Faculty, Mellon Pre-conference on Emerging Research in Dance Studies, August 7-8, 2019, Northwestern University.

  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Institute for Curatorial and Performance Practice, Wesleyan University

  • Teaching for Equity Fellow, Duke University

 

2017-2018

  • Studies in Dance Working Group, Invited Participant, Harvard University/ICA Boston

  • Discussant, New England Cultural Organizers Convening/New England Foundation for the Arts. November 6-7, 2017,  Jacob’s Pillow, Beckett, MA.

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2016-2017

  • Mellon School for Theatre and Performance Research Invited Participant, Harvard University

  • Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance Studies, Brown University (2016-2018)

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2015-2016

  • Dissertation Year Fellow UCLA Graduate Division

  • Graduate Student Researcher, Dr. Susan Leigh Foster (book project) 2015-2016

  • Reviewer, Undergraduate Admissions, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance (BA World Arts/Cultures major). February 2016

 

2014-2015

  • Graduate Student Researcher/Representative. UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative, 2014-2015 school year

  • Reviewer, Undergraduate Admissions, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance Screening Committee (BA World Arts/Cultures major). February 2015

  • Project Coordinator, The Dance Cloud, inter-campus, web-based research and development initiative aimed at supporting working dance artists (Fall 2013-present)
     

2013-2014

  • Graduate Student Researcher/Representative. UCLA Healthy Campus Initiative, 2013-2014 school year

  • Reviewer, Undergraduate Admissions UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance Screening Committee (BA World Arts/Cultures major). February 2014

  • Project Coordinator, The Dance Cloud, inter-campus, web-based research and development initiative aimed at supporting working dance artists (Fall 2013-present)

  • Editorial Reviewer, UCLA Ethnomusicology Review (2013-2014)

 

2012-2013

  • TA Coordinator, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, 2012-2013

  • Editorial Board, UCLA Ethnomusicology Review. UCLA ethnomusicology graduate student journal

  • Reviewer, Undergraduate Admissions, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance Screening Committee (BA dance major). February 1, 2013

  • Conference Co-Chair, Dance Under Construction/Congress on Research in Dance Special Topics Conference The Choreography of non-Dancing Subjects. UCLA (2013)

 

2011-2012

  • Dean’s Student Council Graduate Representative, UCLA-School of Arts and Architecture

    • Dr. Christopher Waterman, Dean

  • Graduate Student Organization Representative, UCLA-Department of World Arts and Cultures

 

2010-2011

  • Conference committee member: “Anxieties of Overexposure”. Graduate student performance studies conference.” Convened by the UCLA Center for Performance Studies, Los Angeles, U.S (2010)

  • Dean’s Student Council Graduate Representative, UCLA-School of Arts and Architecture

    • Dr. Christopher Waterman, Dean

  • Graduate Student Organization Representative, UCLA-Department of World Arts and Cultures

 

1997-2007

  • United Performing Arts Fund, Workplace Giving Performer/Speaker

 

2003-2006           

  • UW-Milwaukee Alumni Association-Board of Trustees

    • Chair Honors Committee Chair (2004-2006)

    • Chair of UWMAA Run Walk Committee (2005-2006)

  • Young Professionals of Milwaukee, Art Mob Committee Member

 

2000-2002

  • Co-Founder, Dance Milwaukee

    • Monthly forum for local artistic directors of non-profit dance companies, co-founded with Simon Dow, Artistic Director, Milwaukee Ballet

1995-1996

  • UW-Milwaukee, Peck School of the Arts, Dean’s Student Council

    • Undergraduate Representative, Dr. Catherine Davy, Dean

 

Memberships/Professional Affiliations

American Studies Association (ASA) (2018-present)

Dance Studies Association (DSA) (2017-present)

Cultural Studies Association (CSA) (2016-present)

American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) (2012-present)

Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (2018-present)

American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS) (2016-2018)

Association of Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) (2016-2018)

Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) (2011-2017)

Congress On Research in Dance (CORD) (2011-2017)

National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) (2014-2016)

World Dance Alliance, (WDA) (2012-2014)

American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) (2008-2012)

 

SARAH
WILBUR
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Choreographer. 

Researcher. 

Dance Advocate.

Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance

Duke University

Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.

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I am Sarah Wilbur. I am a dance artist and scholar whose creative and academic research together recognize the parity between dances that are performed and the aspects of dance making that are suppressed or ignored.  My academic research asks how economic incentives and institutionalized norms of arts production discipline the daily actions and interactions of arts workers. I study how people cooperate within funding bodies and local arts work worlds and highlight how these critical moves shape sustain enabling environments for the arts. I work principally in a US context.

 

I currently serve as an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance in the Dance Program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, U.S. As a dance artist, I have spent over two decades working between the non-profit arts production contexts of concert dance, musical theater, opera, and experimental performance, K-12 education, social service, health care, and Veterans' Affairs. My cross-sector trajectories as a practicing dance artist strongly informs my approach to research and teaching.

 

I am currently completing a book that asks how instruments of federal arts funding make dance artists move across the first fifty years of grant making in the Dance Program at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). I am concurrently conducting ethnographic research on local dance work worlds in off-center US communities. My artistic work currently involves a large team of artists, healthcare providers, senior advocates, and service providers in Durham (didnc.org) working together on an arts engagement initiative aimed at making Durham a dementia-inclusive city by the year 2023. 

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In terms of my education, I hold terminal degrees in dance practice (M.F.A.) and culture and performance (Ph.D.) from UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance as well as a B.F.A. in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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I have taught dance studio, theory, history, service learning, and hybrid courses at five diverse American universities since 1997. In theory and creative practice, I encourage students to situate their dance practices and productions in cultural and political economic contexts and I actively apply body-focused research methods to the study of cultural performances in and beyond the arts. 

 

I joined the Duke Dance faculty in 2018 after completing a two-year appointment as the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in dance studies at Brown University (2016-2018). At Duke, I teach studio courses in improvisation and interdisciplinary performance and seminar/lecture courses in critical dance studies, dance research and writing, theories of corporeality, arts labor and political economy, critical dance pedagogy, and most recently, artists in the US healthcare system. 

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More on my institutional affiliations here: https://scholars.duke.edu/person/sarah.wilbur

 

Assistant Professor of the Practice of Dance                       

Dance Department

Duke University

Box 90686

2020 Campus Drive 209F

Durham, NC 27708-0685

Office Phone: 919-660-3369            

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To avoid over-choreographing our present or future relationship(s), you might consider following me in the clouds using any of the following handles:

 

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.wilbur.50

On Twitter: @swilburdance

On Instagram: @swilburdance

 

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