My Profile

"Nadia graduated with their Master of Theological Studies (MTS) degree this past May 2022 from Harvard Divinity School, in the African and African American Religious Studies Area of Focus. Nadia begins their Ph.D. degree in the Department of Religious Studies at The University of Texas at Austin this August 2022. At HDS, their work focused on Spiritual Reparations in Regla de Ocha-Ifá and other Black Caribbean Diasporic traditions such as Candomblé and Umbanda, and continuing research on Black Cuban Womxn Akpwón/Apwanlás. Nadia spent over three years in Cuba and México pursuing fieldwork and dance study for both research projects that take form as Auto-Ethnographies and dance choreographies expanding Reparation politics and politics of being an Akpwón in Cuba and its diaspora. Nadia is a Company Dancer and the Cultural Strategist with Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE), a Haitian Contemporary dance company. Nadia has received training from and performed in dance works by Cristal Brown, Frederick Earl Mosley, Vincent Hardy, Princess Mhoon, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Bebe Miller, Bárbara Balbuena, Yeniselt Galata Calvo, Eva Despaigne-Trujillo and Obini Batá, Camille A. Brown and Emilio Hernández González of the company Raíces Profundas to name a few. Nadia’s dance choreography has been presented at Boston University, Hampshire College, la Fundación de Alejo Carpentier Havana, Cuba, and Cambridge Carnival Festival 2020. Nadia is a current Research Associate at The Pluralism Project, contributing their research experiences in Afro-Caribbean spiritual-religious traditions. Nadia continues to work through the lens of Traditions and Religions of Afrikan origin, Survival, Blackness, and the Black Caribbean Diaspora within dance and written works. Nadia recognizes that dance is an embodied tool of ritual and resistance in their research and training. Through dance and ethnographic research, Nadia has been able to navigate and communicate Blackness, queerness, spatiality, eco-spiritual activism, and the sacred."