Dance Professor Awarded Major National Fellowship
Associate Professor of Dance Tamara Williams is one of 25 dance artists to receive a Dance/USA Fellowship to Artists.
Established in 1982, Dance/USA is the national service organization for dance. Dance/USA Fellowships to Artists recognize dance and movement-based artists from across the U.S. and its territories “who work at the intersection of social and embodied practices,” the organization states. The fellowships, which provide $31,000 in unrestricted funds to recipients, are supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
“The artists recognized through these fellowships remind us that change often begins in creative practice,” Ashley Ferro-Murray, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Foundation, said in a press release. “Through their movement work, these artists reimagine how we connect, care and build community, and this program honors that vision by meeting them where they are and supporting the full scope of their creativity.”
Williams has a long history of community engaged research, teaching and choreography, working locally, nationally and internationally. Across all of these areas of creative and scholarly activity, her focus is on the arts of the African Diaspora.
“As a dance artist, Tamara treads in both traditional and contemporary approaches to African Diaspora dance with work that centers the experiences and priorities of the communities from which these dances stem,” said Gretchen Alterowitz, chair of the Department of Dance. “This is a highly competitive award, and Williams joins a distinguished class of fellows from across the United States.”
Williams is the author of the article “Reviving Culture through Ring Shout” in The Dancer-Citizen Journal and regularly teaches the course “Origins of Jazz: Ring Shout Traditions,” in which her dance students do field study and perform in museums and historic sites in North and South Carolina. This semester, for example, the class performed at the Charlotte Museum of History, traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, to study shouting traditions, and will perform in December at Cedar Grove, a former cotton plantation in Huntersville.
Her book “Giving Life to Movement: The Silvestre Dance Technique” (McFarland Press, 2021) examines the dance technique founded by the contemporary Brazilian dancer/choreographer Rosangela Silvestre within the historical and political context of African-Brazilian culture. Her latest book, “The African Diaspora and Civic Responsibility: Addressing Injustice through the Arts, Education and Community Engagement,” is forthcoming.
As the founder of Moving Spirits dance company, Williams has performed and presented her choreography nationally and internationally in Brazil, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Benin, Germany, Switzerland and Serbia.
In 2021, she co-founded the LAVAGEM! African Brazilian Festival in partnership with her husband, Luciano Xavier, and The Mint Museum in Charlotte. Presented locally each spring, the festival celebrates African-Brazilian culture through dance, music and cuisine and brings together artists, students and community members for an intercultural exchange.
In 2023, Williams co-created the Benin Movement Research and Exchange in Cotonou and Ouidah, Benin, focusing on African diaspora dance and music in dialogue with Beninese traditions. In 2024, she launched the first bi-annual International African Diaspora Dance Traditions Conference in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, gathering scholars and artists from across the globe. The second conference is scheduled for 2026.
Williams has received numerous grants, awards and commissions, including a 2020 commission from the National Center for Choreography, a 2021 Emerging Creative Fellowship from Charlotte’s Arts & Science Council, and the NC Dance Festival’s 2022 Jan Van Dyke Legacy Award. In 2025, she was awarded a Black Artist Residency at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture and a Creative Renewal Fellowship from the Arts & Science Council.
Williams has also been recognized on campus for her exemplary work. She received a 2019–20 UNC Charlotte Board of Governors Teaching Award and the 2024 Faculty International Education Award from the Office of International Programs.
Photo by Brian Twitty.