Cynthia Bio

About Dr. M. 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 companies, including David Gordon Pick Up Co., Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Bebe Miller, Tere O’Connor Dance and in theatre works by Laurie Carlos, Ntozake Shange, and Deke Weaver. She earned a PhD in performance studies from New York University, is widely published, and has won numerous awards including a New York Dance and Performance (BESSIE) Award, United States Artists, Doris Duke and Guggenheim Fellowships. Her last evening length work, Virago-Man Dem, premiered at BAM’s Next Wave Festival and toured the country. At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, she is the Gutsgell Professor in the Dance Department, an affiliate in African American and Gender & Women’s Studies and served a five-year term (2017-2022) as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Humanities, Arts and Related Fields. In 2023 she was appointed Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Arts Integration, an appointment designed to amplify and support the arts in every area of campus life, in collaboration across disciplines and units and with our surrounding communities.