As part of the 2025 University of New Mexico Research and Discovery Week, on Friday, Nov. 7, the Elizabeth Waters Center hosted the “Body as Archive” exhibit and guided discussion highlighting the visual documentation of the center’s history.
Led by Ninoska M’bewe Escobar, an assistant professor in the department of theater and dance, the event included a tour of the Elizabeth Waters Center to view the photos, concert posters, guest artist biographies and more hung in the hallways between the dance studios in UNM Carlisle Gym.
“The event is an opportunity to expand UNM Dance's connection to other disciplinary areas on campus, to foster conversation about the significance of creative practices like dance to American culture and progress, and to expand engagement with local communities and citizens,” Escobar wrote in a statement to the Daily Lobo.
“Body as Archive” was the first time UNM Dance participated in the University’s Research and Discovery Week, Escobar wrote.
The center’s displayed historical documentation features posters of student performances, historical photos of influential dancers who worked at or performed at UNM and a collection of posters from Festival Flamenco, the largest flamenco festival outside of Spain, which is held in Albuquerque each year.
Escobar introduced attendees to crucial figures in UNM Dance history, including Mela Sedillo, through stories and multiple framed collections of newspaper clippings, posters and photos, while offering insight into the historical and anthropological research done in dance in modern times.
Background information about recent guest artists including Gregory Maqoma and Michael Flores was also on display.
Attendees had the opportunity to learn about the center’s namesake, Elizabeth Waters, the founder of the dance program at UNM. The event also featured the staff and guest artists who shaped the program throughout the years, including legendary flamenco dancer Eva Encinias Sandoval, and her daughter, Marisol Encinias, an assistant professor in the program.
“One of the things that intrigues me in my work as a historian is how the posters, the press clippings, the photography highlight who our faculty are, who our student choreographers are, and tell a story about our program. It makes me think about the way I have been thinking in developing my work, in dance history, about the body itself as an archive,” Escobar said during the event.
The UNM Dance program offers undergraduate and graduate degree concentrations in contemporary dance, and is the only university dance program in the country to offer a degree in flamenco.
“The posters, photographs, press clippings and video on display in our galleries reflect diverse ways of creating and sharing knowledge, and demonstrate how UNM and Southwest dance have catalyzed artistic, social-cultural and political developments and influences in recent history and the current moment,” Escobar wrote.
Maria Fernandez is the copy editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at copy@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
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