Awilda Rodríguez Lora

Awilda Rodríguez Lora is a contemporary Puerto Rican dancer, performance artist, choreographer, and storyteller. Her art focuses on women, sexuality, and self-determination. It also incorporates dialogues of colonial legacies and the identities of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Rodríguez Lora has presented her work throughout North America, South America, and the Caribbean. The artist cites mainstream media as an influence in her work. She is currently the academic director of the Dance Program at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico."Awilda Rodriguez Lora." SAGRADO: Universidad del Sagrado Corazón Website. Retrieved on 29 April 2023.
==Biography==
Rodríguez Lora was born in Veracruz, Mexico to Puerto Rican parents who were traveling through the United States and Mexico.Wexner Center for the Arts. "Awilda Rodríguez Lora Artists Talk." Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University. 15 March 2019. Retrieved on 04 April 2023. Her father studied chiropractic care in New York shortly after Rodríguez Lora was born. Her mother works as a caretaker and an occupational therapist. She has two younger brothers, both of whom were born in Puerto Rico. At the age of 16, Rodríguez Lora began to study dance in Santurce, Puerto Rico. After six months, she was elected to join the studio's company. During her time in the dance company, Rodríguez Lora faced hardships due to her weight and being typecast as a "voluptuous" dancer.
Following their divorce, her mother moved to Florida in search of work. Rodríguez Lora dropped out of college and followed her mother there, where she enrolled in dance classes at Daytona Beach Community College. There, she took her first contemporary dance course which was taught by a pupil of Alvin Ailey. Rodríguez Lora credits this instructor, Kevin Vega, for transforming her relationship with dance and allowing her to be the dancer she now is.
On the advice of Vega, Rodríguez Lora transferred to Hunter College to study dance. In New York City, she choreographed her first solo dance. It was also there that she began to explore her sexuality, queerness, and feminism. Following the events of September 11, 2001, Rodríguez Lora earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Dance with a minor in economics. Upon graduation, she left the city to move to Puerto Rico with her then-girlfriend. After they broke up, Rodríguez Lora was offered a job in New York City, so she returned.
Rodríguez Lora earned a master's degree in arts management from Columbia College Chicago. While in Chicago, Rodríguez Lora choreographed a new piece under the mentorship of Tim Miller. After finishing her degree at Columbia College Chicago, Rodríguez Lora relocated to Oakland, California to live with her partner and partake in an artist residency program based in San Francisco. 
After the program, Rodríguez Lora and her partner split up and she moved to Florida to live with her mother. Inspired by the 2010-11 University of Puerto Rico strikes and the media coverage of Ricky Martin's coming out, she moved back to Puerto Rico to create her art there. She has lived in Puerto Rico since 2011.Rodríguez Lora, Awilda. "Awilda Rodríguez Lora." In Habitar lo imposible: danza y experimentación en Puerto Rico, ed. Susan Homar and nibia pastrana santiago, 220-225. San Juan: Editorial Beta-Local, 2022. . Scholars and artists such as Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes (University of Michigan), Harmony Bench (The Ohio State University), and Raquel Paiewonsky have interviewed Rodríguez Lora about her life and career.CWPS Blog. "ASYNCH \\ Performing the Moment, Performing the Movement: Larry La Fountain-Stokes in Conversation with Awilda Rodríguez Lora." Center for World Performance Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 13 April 2021. Retrieved on 29 April 2023.Bench, Harmony. "The Stories Our Bodies Carry: An Interview with Performance Choreographer Awilda Rodriguez Lora." WexArts. Wexner Center for the Arts. The Ohio State University. Retrieved on 29 April 2023.Fresh Milk Barbados. CATAPULT LVS 32 - Awilda Rodríguez Lora (La Performera) & Raquel Paiewonsky! YouTube, 20 November 2020. Retrieved on 2 May 2023.
==Performances==
Since 2013, Rodríguez Lora has been performing iterations of a performance piece entitled La Mujer Maravilla in which she explores motherhood, community, and gender.Rodríguez Lora, Awilda. ‘‘Bio - Awilda Rodríguez Lora.‘‘ Artist Website. Retrieved on 04 April 2023. This project was conceived out of her own desire to become a mother. She created this project as part of a residency program in Carolina, Puerto Rico at Patio Taller, an arts space led by Las Nietas de Nonó. In 2014, Rodríguez Lora participated in Call & Response, a dynamic of Black Women & Performance at Antioch College curated by Gabrielle Civil featuring the artists Duriel E. Harris, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, Rosamond S. King, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and Miré Regulus.Civil, Gabrielle. “Call & Response: Experiments in Joy.” Obsidian 41, No. 1/2 (Fall 2015), pp. 3-13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44489407. In 2018, Rodríguez Lora was part of a series titled Cuerpxs Radicales: Radical Bodies in Performance at the Brooklyn Museum."Cuerpxs Radicales: Radical Bodies in Performance." Brooklyn Museum, 5 July 2018. Retrieved on 29 April 2023. In March 2019 and September 2020, she had artists residencies at the Ohio State University, as scholar Paloma Martínez-Cruz has discussed.Martínez-Cruz, Paloma. "SUSTENTO: Awilda Rodríguez Lora Dances in Dark Times." WexArts, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, 30 November 2020. Retrieved 29 April 2021. Since beginning her explorations as La Mujer Maravilla, Rodríguez Lora has also worked on a number of other projects.
An incomplete list of performance art pieces by Awilda Rodríguez Lora:
* Miss Latina, U.S.A. (2001)
* Perrea Mami (2006)
*i wanted to be a cheerleader but my cuntry didn't have it (2009)
**La Tortillera
*Da-ño (2009)
*El Velorio de la Comay (2013)
*La Mujer Maravilla 
**Exploración #1 (Carolina, PR, 2013)
**Exploración #2 (The Bronx, NY, 2014)
**Exploración #3 (Yellow Spring, OH, 2014)
**Exploración #6 (San Juan, PR, 2014)
**Exploración #7 (Santiago, Chile, 2014)
**Exploración #7.1 (Valdivia, Chile, 2014)
**Exploración #7.2 (Puerto Montt, Chile, 2014)
**INDIA$ (Miami, FL, 2015)
**Somos Salvajes (Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, 2015)
**Río Piedras (Río Piedras, PR, 2015)
**Exploración #8 (San Juan, PR, 2015)
**INDIA$ LOIZA (San Juan, PR, 2015)
**INDIA$ Deluxe Edition (Ann Arbor, MI, 2015)
**INDIA$ - La Rosario (San Juan, PR, 2015)
**Exploración #10 (2015)
**Exploración #14 (2018)
**Exploración #15 (2019)
* #bailartodoslosdias (ongoing)
==Film Production==
* STILL BLACK: a Portrait of Black Transmen (2008, directed by Kortney Ryan Ziegler, produced by Awilda Rodríguez Lora)
==Grants and Awards==
In 2019, Awilda Rodríguez Lora received a grant for presenting and multidisciplinary works from the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture."Awilda Rodriguez Lora." NALAC, 2019. Retrieved on 29 April 2023.
Category:1978 births
Category:People from Veracruz
Category:Puerto Rican dancers
Category:Performance artists
Category:Choreographers
Category:Storytellers