Christina Soriano

Vice Provost for the Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives; Professor of Dance

Christina Soriano is the Vice Provost for the Arts and Interdisciplinary Initiatives at Wake Forest University and a Professor of Dance. Christina received her MFA in Dance from Smith College and has danced for many inspiring choreographers, including Alexandra Beller and Heidi Henderson.  In addition to the new works she creates for the Wake Forest Dance Company, Christina’s choreography has been presented throughout New England, North Carolina, New York and in Vienna, Austria.  Choreographic or teaching residencies have included the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Amherst College, Trinity College (CT), Salve Regina University, Rhode Island College and Providence College. Christina has premiered a new work at the Music Carolina Festival in Winston-Salem since 2013.  She often works with large, intergenerational casts of dancers, ranging in ages from 5-87.  Since 2012, Christina has regularly taught a community dance class in Winston-Salem, NC to people living with Parkinson’s Disease and their carepartners, and has been involved in three scientific studies that look at the ways improvisational dance can help the mobility and balance of people living with neurodegenerative disease.  She has received funding from the National Parkinson Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC, and most recently the NIH to conduct a randomized clinical trial, testing her improvisational dance method in a community of adults living with Mild Cognitive Impairment and their carepartners.  Her published work has appeared in the Journal of Dance Education, Research in Dance Education, Dance Magazine, Theatre Journal, the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, The Journal of Physical and Occupational Therapy in Geriatrics and Frontiers in Neurology.  In her role as an associate provost, she is working with colleagues across the university to enhance the visibility of the arts at and beyond Wake Forest, and help forge interdisciplinary connections with many community partners.  She is also very involved in an annual, interdisciplinary symposium: Wake Forest’s Aging Re-Imagined, which brings together the work of artists and scientists around the topic of Healthy Aging.

Visit www.improvment.wfu.edu for more information. Christina’s Twitter account @sorianoct.

Courses Taught
Beginning Modern Dance (DCE 120)
Intermediate Modern Dance (DCE 221)
Advanced Modern Dance (DCE 222)
Movement for Men (DCE 130)
Improvisation (DCE 205)
Senior Dance Project (DCE 200)
Dance Composition (DCE 223)
20th Century Modern Dance History (DCE 203)
FYS Framed: Looking at the Moving Body in Film and Video (FYS 100)
Movement and the Molecular (DCE 122)
Meet me at the Fair (FYS 100)

Christina Soriano Headshot