Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón
Puerto Rican movement artist Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón aims to create artistic explorations that heighten the senses, provoke inquisition, and demand attention, honing in to their belief that true connection between art maker and audience is achieved through raw emotive experiences. A sense of urgency is common in their work, as art has long been a loud and persuasive means to cope and communicate, facilitating a healing and explorative experience for dancers and audience alike. As a Queer Latine woman, they are committed to making art that is unapologetic, ideally aiding to create a world in which people think longer, feel harder, and experience life without hesitation.
They are a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and hold a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Washington University in St. Louis.
Curriculum Vitae
Research
Statement
Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón researches Puerto Rican dance and the histories, lineages, and politics that inform Puerto Rican dance encounters. The research largely considers national identity as a topic of discussion when grappling with questions about the diaspora, the nation’s sovereignty, nationalism, and art as activism. Centering ongoing debates allows the research to inquire how bodies position themselves within relation to the politics and legislation that have/will impact their life and art making. Their scholarship seeks to further engage topics of race, class, gender, and sexuality to explore how values surrounding these topics circulate, manifest, change, and are enacted within dance in Puerto Rico and the diaspora.
An embodied practice is also critical to their research work, embodied knowledge and embodiment as research is the in through which they understand and posit how the bodies’ understanding of space and time, and all that inhabits it, is tied to our perceptions of self, which includes identity.
