Juliana Azoubel

Juliana Azoubel is a Brazilian dance artist, teacher, researcher and mom who has been sharing her life between Brazil and the US since 1996. In Brazil, besides her extensive dance training, teaching and performance experiences, Azoubel has served as a professor of dance and head of the art/education department of the Federal University of Parana from 2009-2013 and has been a professor of dance at the Federal University of Minas Gerais since 2014. In Minas Gerais, she has served as a teacher/lecturer at the School of Grupo Corpo from 2015 to present and the artistic director of Grupo Aruanda, two of the most renowned dance companies in Brazil. Azoubel lives in Texas as a fellow and PhD candidate while teaching and researching for the TWU Dance Division. Azoubel holds a BFA in Dance and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida, and is a Stott Pilates and TAO Pilates master Instructor. She has served as an artist in residence at the University of Florida and has performed in the U.S., Europe and South America. Her interests blend dance ethnography, traditional and Contemporary dance, social, cultural, pedagogical, community, diasporic, intercultural performance, feminist approaches, migration and Latine aspects of dance making.

Trained in ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary, Latine and ballroom, and having mastered several Brazilian dance forms, Azoubel believes in the interconnection of artistry, teaching, and research as well as in the power of interdisciplinary work as tools for dance making. Azoubel has published academic articles and books, and her scholarship is present in elementary, middle, and high school, and young adult education. In Brazil and abroad, her writings have contributed to decolonizing curricular and intercultural practices, and to interconnecting artistry, pedagogy, and dance scholarship.

Azoubel is one of the creators of the Centro de Formaçao em Danca do SESC, a dance community project housed in the city of Belo Horizonte that serves as a national model for inclusion and diversity in dance in Brazil. In her current stay in the United States, since 2019, she has been the recipient of the Langston Dance Fellowship, dance scholarships at TWU and Texas Education Grants. She created the Dancing Eagles, a performance Ensemble housed at Evers Park Elementary School for kids from K-12.

In Brazil and internationally, she has been recognized for her committed scholarship towards intercultural performance and creative ways of teaching dance to all ages, abilitie, and communities.