Sarah Wilbur

“Re-Structuring? Policy and Performance Today” - Institutional Theatrics Working Group Symposium - · May 7, 2022 - May 8, 2022 Instructional Course, Workshop, or Symposium NYU Skirball, Zoom

"Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West's Broadway Revival of Spring Awakening" - Musical Theatre Futures · July 2021 Keynote/Named Lecture University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Music Theatres Futures.
University of Melbourne, Melbourne Australia, December 7, 2020. “Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West’s Broadway Revival of Spring Awakening.” Biennial gathering hosted by VCA Music Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts & Music.

"Bureaucratic Angling, Institutional Activism: Dance's "covert" Culture Wars (1981-1996)" - Columbia University Seminar "Studies in Dance" · February 3, 2020 Invited Talk Columbia University, New York

Bureaucratic Angling: Funding Bodies in Dance at the National Endowment for the Arts - American Society for Theater Research Annual Conference · November 7, 2019 - November 10, 2019 International Meeting or Conference ASTR, Arlington, VA

Funding Bodies: Working Identities in Dance at the National Endowment for the Arts - Dance Studies Association Annual Conference · August 9, 2019 - August 9, 2019 Keynote/Named Lecture Dance Studies Association, Northwestern University

"Funding Bodies: Working Identities in Dance at the National Endowment for the Arts" - Annual Conference "Dance works for the Commons: Actions, Interventions, Innovations" Keynote Plenary · August 9, 2019 Invited Talk Dance Studies Association, Northwestern University

Bureaucratic Angling, Institutional Activism: The NEA Dance Program’s Covert “Culture Wars" - Arts Patronage in Modern America Symposium · June 26, 2019 - June 29, 2019 International Meeting or Conference Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University

“How to Dance in a Crisis: Emergency Maneuvers at the US Department of Veterans Affairs” - American Studies Association Annual Conference · November 10, 2018 International Meeting or Conference ASA, Westin Peachtree, Atlanta Hotel & Conference Center

Disclosure Tactics (2018) - Women Who Dance · March 2018 Exhibition, Screening, or Performance Next Act Theatre/Danceworks Performance Company Presented 45-minute solo dance-theatre work DISCLOSURE TACTICS for myself and a group of intergenerational female-identified performers about what the body hides and reveals, by dancing.

I presented the piece twice in 2018, first at Brown University in Providence, RI with an ensemble of 14, and again with a new Danceworks, Inc., 25th anniversary season in Milwaukee with 20 eager performers.

Press coverage viewable here:
https://shepherdexpress.com/arts-and-entertainment/dance/ferocious-moves-in-danceworks-inspiring-women-who-dance/

https://www.milwaukeemag.com/danceworks-25th-anniversary-women-who-dance-sarah-wilbur/

http://danceworksmke.org/and-then-came-sarah/

“NEA Policy and (as) Possibility: Organizing African Disapora Dance" - Collegium of African Diaspora Dance Conference · February 18, 2018 International Meeting or Conference Duke University

An Acorn - Mauricio Salgado (dir.) · 2018 - 2018 Exhibition, Screening, or Performance Trinity Repertory Provided choreography and staging for premiere adaptation of by Caridad Svich's poem-play, directed by Mauricio Salgado for Brown/Trinity at the Pell Chafee Performing Arts Center in Providence, Rhode Island.

Concert Dance Works, multiple - Danceworks Performance Company · 1997 - 2007 Exhibition, Screening, or Performance various venues From 1997-2007 I co-founded and served as choreographer-artistic director for Milwaukee-based contemporary dance collective Danceworks Performance Company, where I created over thirty works for the concert stage. These works included five (5) evening-length intergenerational dance documentary performances under the auspices of The Wide Sky Dance Project, the first of which received support from the National Endowment for the Arts. This choreography was housed at a number of midwest venues. A partial list of works produced is available on my professional website.

Service to the Profession

Co-Editor, Arts in Context: Critical Performance Infrastructures · June 2024 Editorial Activities University of Texas Press, University of Texas - Austin Edited by Charlotte Canning, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Michael Sy Uy, & Sarah Wilbur
Acquiring Editor Sarah McGavick

Arts in Context: Critical Performance Infrastructures seeks to make visible and to expand scholarship on the essential, yet often hidden, infrastructures that shape the performing arts. The series collects scholarship that reveals and interrogates the foundations on which performance depends—not only physical performance spaces, but also funding systems, arts education, local policies, and labor conditions. Centering human infrastructures, titles in this series advance understandings of the performing arts as intertwined professions, businesses, and institutions. They highlight debates about equity and engage shifts created by the pandemic and the datafication of the arts. The series editors invite projects on all performing arts, especially those that center the humanities, and projects that encompass a range of disciplines such as history, labor studies, policy studies, and economics.

If you think this series is a good fit for your project, please contact Sarah McGavick (smcgavick@utpress.utexas.edu) or any of the series editors for more details about submitting a proposal. See also our Prospective Authors page for detailed guidelines for submission.

Participant, Faculty Curriculum on Anti-Racism · January 11, 2021 - January 14, 2021 Professional Development Duke Office of Faculty Advancement

Arts Sector Lead, Dementia Inclusive, Durham · July 8, 2020 Projects & Field Work Dementia Inclusive Inc.,

United States Coordinate and facilitate creative engagement gatherings across six DID site organizations, including storytelling and participatory art making with persons living with Dementia and their care partners.

Member, Anti-Racist Dance Studies Pedagogies, Practices, Initiatives · 2020 Committee Service Davidson College, Virtual

Director, Board of Directors, Dance Studies Association · September 2019 - September 1, 2024 Other Currently entering the start of a second term on the DSA Board.
2019-2021 (term I)
2021-2024 (term II)

Member, Finance and Development Committee · September 1, 2019 Committee Service Dance Studies Association

Participant, Faculty Success Program · 2019 Professional Development National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD)

Reviewer, Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts · 2018 - 2019 Editorial Activities Herberger Institute Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Programs, Arizona State University

Member, Dismantling White Supremacy in Dance Studies Working Group · 2017 Committee Service Dance Studies Association

Service to Duke

Principal Investigator, Team Lead, Bass Connections · 2026 - 2027 Research Duke Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, Duke University

United States This project team will pilot a dance-based component of a future multi-arts Creative Care Curriculum — a free, accessible collection of adaptable “movement recipes,” training tools and mentorship resources for use across Durham care settings. The program will embed arts and health fellows in clinical, community, cultural and residential sites that serve people living with dementia and cognitive change. Together with master movement facilitators, fellows will co-create, test and refine a set of open-source teaching tools to support creative, culturally responsive care.

Team members will participate in mentorship, curriculum development and site-based program delivery. Activities will include co-designing movement recipes, testing facilitation approaches, supporting evaluation and documentation and collaborating with site partners to reflect on cultural fit, accessibility and sustainability.

Research methods will include observations, reflective journals, session logs, brief interviews, fidelity and responsiveness checklists and pre/post self-efficacy measures for artist fellows. The team will deliver approximately 60 movement sessions across Durham County, reaching an estimated 120 older adults with cognitive change and 60 care partners or staff.

Principal Investigator, Public Art as Public Health - Moving Messages of Dementia Inclusion · May 12, 2021 - June 25, 2021 Research Franklin Humanities Institute - Story+, Virtual

North Carolina

Committee on Interdisciplinary Collaboration (University) · 2021 Committee Service Duke Arts

Member, Disability Justice Alliance · September 2019 Other Health Humanities Lab, Franklin Humanities Institute

Trinity Arts & Sciences Council Representative (University) · August 26, 2019 - July 1, 2021 Committee Service Duke University Arts & Sciences

Rubenstein Arts Center Advisory Committee (University) · 2019 - 2020 Committee Service Duke Arts

Trinity Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee (University) · 2019 - 2021 Committee Service Trinity College of Arts and Sciences

Leadership & Clinical Positions

Member, Trinity Curriculum Development Committee (2022-present)

Academic & Administrative Activities

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
- Trinity Curriculum Development Committee (2022-present)
- Trinity Arts and Sciences Council Representative - Duke Dance Program (2019-2021)
- Trinity Arts and Sciences Council Subcommittee on (undergraduate) Curriculum (2019-2021)

Duke Arts
- Rubenstein Arts Center Advisory Committee (2019-2021)

Health Humanities Lab - John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI)
- Disability Justice Alliance (2019-present)

Duke Dance Program
- Director of Graduate Studies - Dance Program (July 2021-present)
- Director of Undergraduate Studies - Dance Program (2020-2021)
- MFA Advisory Committee - Dance Program (2018 - present)
- UG Curriculum Committee - Dance Program (2020 - present)
- Production Coordination - Dance Program Spring CHOREOLAB (2020)

Duke Initiatives

Masters Student Mentor PhD Student Mentor Undergraduate Student Mentor