Alicia Díaz

Alicia Díaz joined The University of Richmond in 2011 where she now serves as associate professor of dance. She teaches contemporary dance, improvisation, choreography, and community-engaged courses centered on dance for social change.

As a Puerto Rican contemporary dance artist in the diaspora Alicia’s work speaks to issues of memory, colonialism, and the legacy of slavery. Recent collaborations with percussionist Héctor “Coco” Barez engage Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba as a point of reference to investigate embodied forms of resistance, healing, and liberation. Alicia received the 2020 Community-Engaged Scholarship Award from the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, recognizing her work with the Tucker Boatwright Festival: Dancing Histories, This Ground’s commission of Brother General Gabriel, co-directed by Free Bangura and MK Abadoo; the collaborative video project "Knowledge of This Cannot be Hidden" Westham Burying Ground Commemorative Act, on the history of the unmarked burial ground for enslaved people at UR; and the award-winning dance film Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Women in Resistance Shall Not Be Moved, weaving stories of anti-colonial and feminist activism through the history of tobacco in Puerto Rico and Virginia.

Alicia has performed with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Andanza: Puerto Rican Contemporary Dance Company, Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, Marion Ramírez and Sally Silvers amongst others. She has co-directed Rubí Theatre, a Latinx, intergenerational theater ensemble in New York City; en la brega dance company, with Puerto Rican dance artist Ñequi González; and Agua Dulce Dance Theater, with movement artist Matthew Thornton, creating works for concert dance, museums, and site-specific locations. Her work has been presented in the United States, Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico.

Alicia serves on the Board of Pepatián: Bronx Arts ColLABorative, an organization that supports Latinx, Black, Afro-Latinx, Caribbean, Latin American, and indigenous artists. Alicia's work is featured in the recent publication Inhabiting the Impossible: Dance and Experimentation in Puerto Rico, the first book of its kind to survey the field of Puerto Rican experimental dance across four decades.