Artist laureate brings dance to Ohio State Lima, Liberty Elementary

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown, artist laureate at The Ohio State University, wants people to be excited about dance as a performance art medium and art making as a creative practice. Her new production Dancing Stories: Comings, Goings, and Finding Home will be free and open to the public for an evening performance at 6 p.m., Thursday, March 7, in the Martha W. Farmer Theatre for the Performing Arts.

“There is a little something in the show for everyone. There are moments of whimsy, moments of sincere contemplations, and moments of careless movement for movement sake,” said McCarthy-Brown, associate professor of dance pedagogy through community engagement in the Department of Dance. “The show is inspiring. I believe it will give the children participating in the performance as well as current Ohio State Lima community members ideas about what is possible in the dance major at Ohio State.”

Dancing Stories features a collection of dancers that uplift the themes of identity, inclusion, and expanding ideas around who gets to dance. The Lima show will feature a collaborative performance with Ohio State dancers and dancers from Liberty Elementary School, which is part of the Lima City School system. In addition, McCarthy-Brown will present two works with her cast of eight Ohio State dance majors and share a short dance film featuring BalletMet dancer Victoria Watford. Pieces by graduate students in The Ohio State University Department of Dance, Lucy Dillon and Kierra Williams, will also be shared in this performance.  

“Art, movement, and dance are important for all people,” McCarthy-Brown said. “It is exciting to bring youthful energy into the theater space and onto the stage. The fourth graders from Liberty Elementary are artists and future artists, and audience members, as well as future audience members.” 

In addition to the Lima visit, McCarthy-Brown will take Dancing Stories to Ohio State Mansfield, Miami University and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

More about Dr. Nya McCarthy-Brown

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown is an internationally-recognized, culturally-sustaining dance educator. She is an associate professor of dance pedagogy through community engagement at The Ohio State University. Originally from San Francisco, McCarthy-Brown’s love for dance developed at her community recreation center, and later at the School of the Arts High School. She earned her BA in Political Science from Spelman College; MFA in Performance and Choreography from the University of Michigan; and a doctoral degree in dance studies from Temple University.  McCarthy-Brown’s first book, Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Research, Theory, and Practice was released in 2017, and quickly became an anchoring text in dance education. She recently completed her second book, Skin Colored Pointes: Interviews with Women of Color in Ballet. McCarthy-Brown is an active consultant for organizations such as BalletMet, San Francisco Ballet School, Dance Educators Coalition of Minnesota, Cincinnati Ballet, Ohio Dance, and Dance Education Laboratory. This year, she is excited to step into her new role as the inaugural artist laureate at The Ohio State University.