Donna Mejia Oral History, 2021

A choreographer, scholar, instructor, and performer, Donna Mejia is an Associate Professor of Dance and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Colorado. She specializes in contemporary dance, traditions of the African and Arab Diaspora, and emerging fusion traditions in Transnational Electronica, and is an authorized instructor in Brazilian Silvestre Modern Dance Technique. She has a business degree from CU and an MFA in Dance from Smith College. For 12 years she was Managing Director of Harambee African Dance Ensemble at CU which was awarded an El Pomar grant, featured in the March 1996 issue of Dance Magazine, performed for President Bill Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and is part of the DIA time capsule. Mejia has been a faculty member at Colorado College and director for their International Summer Dance Festival. For three years she was Artist in Residence at Smith College and has been in residence at universities throughout the US including Jacob’s Pillow and Bates Dance Festival as well as at Taipei National University of the Arts and IsArt Post-Secondary Schools of the Arts in Mozambique. Her scholarship includes presentations for the Fulbright Association, at Syracuse University, direction of the first Viral Dance Colloquium which was an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars and artists, and she will direct the First World Congress of Transcultural Fusion Dance in 2021. In her performances she has collaborated with poets, vocalists, and musicians. Mejia continues to tour and has headlined over 50 international festivals since 2012.