Nadia Ureña is an active Philly based performer, choreographer, and researcher who aims to intersect dance studies with black feminism, media theory, existential philosophy, video games, and memes. As a performer, Nadia worked with professional artists such as Orion Duckstein, Charles Anderson, Cynthia Gutierrez-Garner, Xiang Xu, The Megan Flynn Dance Company, and Teresa VanDenend Sorge. She has performed at The Cincinnati Fringe Festival, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, 30/30/30 in NYC, KYLD’s Inhale Series, the American Dancers Guild 2024, and Wax Works in NYC. As a scholar, Nadia is interested in questioning and reimagining how dance composition courses in higher ed could refocus into emphasizing a development of choreographic process instead of choreographic products. She served as a panelist at the 2023 NDEO Conference about teaching undergraduate students about labor rights. Nadia recently earned an MFA in Dance at Temple University. At Temple, she was a Graduate Fellow and recipient of the 2024 Katherine Dunham Award for Creative Dance Research. She received a B.A. in Dance and Media & Communications from Muhlenberg College and spent a semester abroad at the Accademia dell’Arte in Arezzo, Italy.