Donna Mejia

Donna Mejia Welcomes You

Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder Libraries

Faculty Fellow, CU Boulder Renée Crown Wellness Institute

Affiliate faculty for Women and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, and The CU Boulder Center for Teaching and Learning

The first joyful half of my professional adventures has been as a cultural scholar, choreographer, and performer in the dance traditions of the African and Arab Diaspora, as expressed through Transcultural Fusion Dance (TcFD).  This genre provides a rich arena for the study of subjects such as the impact of cultural imperialism, gender representation, the preservation of traditions through technology, the tension between fusion and traditionalism, the emergence of global citizenship and fair-trade cultural exchange through digital communities. 

My expanded role as an interdisciplinary professor in CU Boulder Libraries (2024) has become a glorious unboxing from academic silos.

My interdisciplinary work prioritizes:

• Repair, care, healing, and the wellness of those impacted by the complexity and injustices of modernity
• Social justice—a close examination of policies, practices, conventions, and worldviews that unfairly privilege one identity over another
• The pursuit of inner liberation through meditation and mindfulness in the face of dehumanization and injustice; practices of Earth’s human cultures that locate and develop resilience
• A Friendly approach to embodiment and interoception: somatic attunement through trauma-sensitive and culturally robust frameworks for dimensionalization of consciousness; embodied abolitionism
• The arts as a vehicle for individual and communal wellness and healing
• Fumble Forward, a framework to address cultural collisions in our emerging global citizenship
• Gender justice, and gender expression equity
• Fusion as a methodology in transnationalism, transculturalism, identity formation, and cultural expression

This organic development of my lifework has been a tremendously wild and wonderful adventure!

Achievements in the Arts

I am an authorized instructor of the Brazilian Silvestre Modern Dance Technique after 35 years of practice. I completed my undergraduate degree in Business at CU-Boulder, and received my Master of Fine Arts degree on full fellowship from Smith College.  For 10 years I was a faculty member at Colorado College and Director of the Colorado College International Summer Dance Festival. For twelve years I served as Managing Director of the award-winning Harambee African Dance Ensemble of CU-Boulder under the amazing leadership of Instructor Emerita Letitia Williams. The Harambee ensemble was awarded the prestigious El Pomar Foundation grant, was featured in the March 1996 issue of Dance Magazine, performed for President Bill Clinton and Nobel Laureate Archbiship Desmond Tutu, is part of the Denver International Airport time capsule, and was hailed as the “Best of Boulder” for 3 years. I joined the University of Colorado at Boulder as an Assistant Professor of Dance in 2012 as the first tenure-track professor of Transcultural Fusion Dance globally and instigated a global conversation that decolonized terminologies and practices in the genre. Awards include:

• Honored by the Fulbright Association to present the 2011 Selma Jeanne Cohen Endowed Lecture for International Dance Scholarship in Dance, notably for the paper “Digital Diasporas and Transnational Dance Communities: The Effects of the Internet on Identity Formation and Collective Cultural Memory.”
• 2021 Legend of Dance by the Carson Dance Library
• 2021 Outstanding Mentor Award from the CU Graduate School and served students as Director of Graduate Studies in Dance for CU Boulder’s Theatre and Dance Department for four years.
• 2022 University of Colorado President’s Award for Justice, Equity, and Inclusion work
• 2021-2022 Excellence in Leadership cohort at CU Boulder. I have performed my solo work all over the world, and enjoyed collaborating with community members for philanthropic activism.
• Guest Artist in Residencies for Smith College Dance 2006 – 2009, Simon Fraser University in Canada, Colorado College, the Naropa Institute, University of South Florida, Mt. Holyoke College, Hofstra University, University of Wyoming, St. Olaf College, Hampshire College, Syracuse University, University of Northern Colorado, Taipei National University of the Arts, Bucknell University, Earth Dance, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (three years), IsArt Post-Secondary School of the Arts in Mozambique, and the Bates Dance Festival (three years).
• Nominated for a Pikes Peak Area Artist award in 2005.

Achievements in Pedagogical Science

My writings and pedagogical tools focused on equity, communication, community building, inclusion, intersectionality, and healing are part of the 2022 anthology Picture a Professor with West Virginia University Press.  Two other academic journal publications have been uplifted by their respective publishers in “best of” collections. I was thoroughly delighted to have presented a 2024 TEDx talk about my Fumble Forward framework for navigating cultural collisions. I have consulted for, and presented to, hundreds of organizations including the Colorado Department of Education, many universities, FLAMEnet at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Integral Institute, and more. I was deeply honored to have been part of an educational delegation from the Renée Crown Wellness Institute to visit Dharamsala in 2024 to visit with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

 Interdisciplinary Achievements

I am an advocate for both the deep dive in a singular discipline, and equally, the rigorous and valid methodologies of transdisciplinary scholarship. I am solo and co-published in four fields of study. Our interconnectivity and interdependence is driving us to work collaboratively to solve complex problems from more than one vantage point. Let’s be about it!

• 2021-2024, Inaugural Chancellor’s Scholar in Residence, Renée Crown Wellness Institute
• Co-production of Grounded Knowledge Panels with Dr. Valerie Joseph (Smith College) on topics ranging from code switching to enacting futurity and compassion in education
• Collaborations with The Denver Art Museum, the Dairy Center for the Arts, and Tilt West
• Keynote, Syracuse University’s 2012 Symposium on Public Diplomacy Keynote
• 2022 Keynote, Colorado Organization of Victim Assistance Workers
• Director, 2014  first Viral Dance Colloquium; an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars and artists to discuss the impact of Internet usage on human affairs.
• collaboration with poet Andrea Assaf in performances for the venerable La Mama Theatre in Manhattan, The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and with vocalist Mankwe Ndosi for the Women of the World Festival at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY.
• Collaborative musical compositions with the artist Saunt EP

My private projects include instructing meditation and yoga, curating with arts organizations, anthropological study and nature travel, reading, and consulting on community justice projects to counter human trafficking. In my free time, I study human rituals of adornment, sewing, fibre art, design and textile history. I invite you to visit the “Bobbin Banga” tab here.