Dr. Candice Salyers is a choreographer and performer whose work focuses on feminist, ecological, and humanitarian issues, proposing that site-specific dance can contribute to unique ways of embodying ethical citizenship. Her work has been presented in the US, UK, Estonia, Spain, Morocco, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic. She was recently awarded an artist residency in Acadia National Park, and documentation of her performances will be archived by the US Department of the Interior. Her work has been honored with an Alma Bucovaz Award for Urban Service, a Choreographic Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Solo Performance Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission, a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, and a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for her forthcoming book. She was one of the first dancers invited to speak at the Society for European Philosophy, and her publications include contributions to Tanz, Bewegung, und Spiritualität, The Dancer-Citizen, The Journal of Environmental Philosophy, and the Journal of Performance and Mindfulness.

My work centers around engaging the arts in humanitarian service, particularly through Performance Process, a specialization within the field of Dance which respects acts of performing as simultaneously physical and philosophical experiences. While Performance Process is always the primary methodology involved in my scholarly and creative activity, the products of this research may vary and include live stage and environmental site performances, dance films, visual art installations, and written articles, as well as presentations and workshops that further share the ideas discovered through performance. While it is vital to me as an artist to maintain the rigor of my artistic practices, it is equally important to me to explore how dance can participate in and benefit the world outside the studio or theatre. My work serves the conjunction of dance performance, human conflict/peacebuilding, and the living environment. Human conflict buries beauty, both literally and metaphorically. By obscuring people’s ability to see goodness in each other, conflict consumes the imagination while weapons reduce both the living and constructed environment to rubble. Artists are uniquely equipped to uncover and rebuild beauty and to help people remember their shared humanity. My research and creative activity seeks to reveal beauty, to create beauty, and to remind us of how that beauty connects us with each other and our environments.