Lisa Wilson
Lisa Wilson (Jamaica)
Lisa Wilson is a dance performer, artist-educator and choreographer. Her research interests include decolonizing dance teaching and learning particularly in higher education.
Lisa has done collaborative research projects with Dr. Lynnette Overby from University of Delaware, which employ multidisciplinary arts-based research methodology as pedagogical and scholarly tools to share the underrepresented yet resilient historical and contemporary legacies and narratives of South African and African American women.
She is an active member of the dance faculty of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, Jamaica and is a senior lecturer in contemporary dance at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
"Same Story" Different Countries
"Same Story" Different Countries, is a multidisciplinary project that encompasses literary and historical research, visual arts, music, poetry and dance. Participants include student and faculty researchers and performers, composers, choreographers, dancers, musicians, painters and poets – in locations spanning the globe from the UD campus to Wilmington and Dover in Delaware, to North Carolina and South Africa.
Artist in residence Lisa Wilson accompanied her dance students from the University of Cape Town to collaborate with dancers at UD. Local performers included UD dance students as well as dancers from the Christina Cultural Arts Center (CCAC) and the modern dance company Pieces of a Dream, both in Wilmington.
The project explores themes of oppression, resistance and liberation that are common in the history of the United States and South Africa. The overall goal of the project is to enable researchers, artists and participants to transform, synthesize and illuminate global racial issues in South Africa and the United States through an artistic lens.
Participants in the project
The artistic directors of "Same Story" Different Countries are Lynnette Overby and Colin Miller, Director for Global Arts. Choreographers for the project are Overby and adjunct faculty member A.T. Moffett from UD; Lela Aisha Jones of FlyGround in Philadelphia and Ashley Sullivan Davis of Pieces of a Dream in Wilmington, both community performance groups; Tumi Nkomo of South Africa; Lisa Wilson of the University of Cape Town; Vincent Thomas of Towson University; and Teresa Emmons of Dover High School.
The musical director is Ralph Russell of Pennsylvania, with composers Xiang Gao, Trustees Distinguished Professor of Music at UD, and South African drummer Kesivan Naidoo. Original art has been created by South African artists Garth Erasmus.
