Nadia Milad Issa is a scholar, researcher, professional dancer and dance educator. Issa earned their Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in the African and African American Religious Studies area of focus. At Harvard Divinity School, they continued their work on Spiritual Reparations in Regla de Ocha-Ifá and other Black Caribbean Diasporic traditions and continued research on Black Cuban Womxn Akpwón/Apwanlás. Issa spent over seven years in Cuba and México pursuing fieldwork and dance study for both research projects that take the form of ethnographies and dance choreographies expanding peparation politics, coining Spiritual Reparations and politics of being an Akpwón/Akpwanlá in Cuba and its diaspora. Issa is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Dance at The University of Texas at Austin, a part of the Department of Theatre and Dance, starting in August 2024.
Issa has received training from and performed in dance works by Cristal Brown, Frederick Earl Mosley, Vincent Hardy, Princess Mhoon, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Bebe Miller, Bárbara Balbuena, Yeniselt Galata Calvo, Eva Despaigne-Trujillo and Obini Batá, Camille A. Brown and Emilio Hernández González of the company Raíces Profundas, to name a few. Issa's dance choreography has been presented at Boston University; Hampshire College; la Fundación de Alejo Carpentier Havana, Cuba and Cambridge Carnival Festival 2020. Issa served as a research associate at The Pluralism Project, where they contributed their research experiences in Afro-Caribbean spiritual-religious traditions. They continue to work through the lens of traditions and religions of Afrikan origin, survival, Blackness and the Black Caribbean Diaspora within dance and written works. Issa recognizes that dance is an embodied tool of ritual and resistance in their research and training. Through dance and ethnographic research, they have been able to navigate and communicate Blackness, queerness and the sacred.
www.linkedin.com/in/nadiaissa/