Cynthia Oliver

Cynthia Oliver is a St.Croix, Virgin Island reared dance maker and scholar. Her work incorporates textures of Caribbean performance with African and American aesthetic sensibilities. She has toured the globe as a featured dancer with numerous contemporary dance and theatre companies, including David Gordon Pick Up Co., Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, and in works by Laurie Carlos, Ntozake Shange, Greg Tate, Ione, and Deke Weaver. She earned a PhD in performance studies from New York University, is widely published, and has won numerous awards including a 2021 Doris Duke Artist and United States Artist awards. She is a New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Award winner and at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is professor in the dance department, and an affiliate in African American and Gender & Women’s Studies she has won the nomination only University Scholar award and is a Center for Advanced Studies Professor. She currently serves as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Humanities, Arts and Related Fields.