Dance artist, educator joins faculty at ASU

'Teaching is my primary passion,' says Nicole Bradley Browning

May 23, 2023

Artist, educator and performer Nicole Bradley Browning is joining the faculty of the School of Music, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University. Prior to this position, Bradley Browning served as a professor and the head of dance at the University of Montana for 20 years.

“We are thrilled to have attracted Nicole Bradley Browning to our dance program,” said Heather Landes, director of the School of Music, Dance and Theatre. “She brings a wealth of knowledge and breadth of experience to our program. Her passion for teaching and ethics of care for students aligns well with our program’s values and vision.” A dancer performs in a desert landscape Artist, educator and performer Nicole Bradley Browning is joining the faculty of the School of Music, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University. Her creative research focuses on the complexity of relationships and the connection between people and place. Photo courtesy Nicole Bradley Browning Download Full Image

Bradley Browning received her MFA from ASU, then danced professionally in Washington, D.C., before making her way into academia, first at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and then at the University of Montana. She said she has been following the dance program at ASU and is thrilled about her move.

“ASU’s dance program has been a leader in dance in higher education, especially in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Bradley Browning said. “This program has always been at the forefront of really dynamic change in dance education. It was always a model for me.”

Another thing that sets ASU apart, she said, is the engagement with the local community.

“House (Magana) and David (Olarte) have these incredible programs that bring the community into dance at ASU and bridge some gaps that happen between institutions and the local dance community,” she said. “That’s something that I really tried to implement in my previous position and aspire to achieve here.”

Bradley Browning’s creative research focuses on the complexity of relationships and the connection between people and place. She specializes in teaching contemporary modern dance, improvisation, contact improvisation, contemporary ballet and dance-making practices.

“Contact improvisation is a unique American dance form,” she said. “It’s a social dance form that functions in a different way than social partnership dances. There are contact improvisation communities throughout the world, and that is something I think we can cultivate here.”

After moving back to Arizona, Bradley Browning began teaching at ASU as a faculty associate. She said she has really enjoyed teaching again after working in education administration.

“Teaching is my primary passion. That’s why I came back into this,” she said. “To be able to come back to ASU was really inspiring for me. I was grateful for the opportunity to come in as a (faculty associate), to know for sure this is my life’s work.”

She said she looks forward to mentoring students again.

“I hope I can provide a space where each student has the opportunity to feel free and supported to develop into an artist, dancer, educator and human being,” she said. “I also hope to be able to mentor the graduate students through their teaching practices and pedagogy.”

Bradley Browning shared what she’s excited about at ASU, her creative research, what she wants students to know about her and what she hopes to nurture in students.

Question: What’s something you’re really excited about at ASU?

Answer: I feel really excited to be a part of the path that ASU has taken in celebrating many different kinds of art forms. I’ve never seen social dance celebrated in the way ASU does. There’s something for everyone. ASU has a home for people who are planning to pursue dance professionally; it also provides a home for people who have never had access to dance before and have only seen dance function in one way. I appreciate that the door is open for many people of different backgrounds and to experience dance in different capacities. I hope that’s something I can help continue.

Q: Tell us more about your work on the connection between people and place?

A: My interest in place and weaving ecofeminist values in art began to take shape with a project called Sound of Rivers, a multimedia work that artistically translated how the sounds of rivers influenced waterway ecosystems in the Glacier National Park region of northwest Montana. The writings and research of interdisciplinary educator and artist Andrea Olsen have influenced continued creative work exploring our connection to self, others, place, climate, the Earth and wellness. I look forward to continuing this research here, honoring Arizona.

Q: What is something you want students to know about you?

A: For me, I aspire for there to be a holistic approach to all of my work with dance, whether it be teaching, dance making, research, service (or) community engagement. Important pillars for me are the people with whom I’m engaged, the place, the community we create together and active, respectful collaboration.

Q: What is something you try to nurture in your students?

A: Their unique individual, distinctive voice. As a technique teacher, I grew up in a model of do as the teacher does, replicate and do it better. I don’t believe in that philosophy. I try to offer a movement framework and then encourage the students to incorporate their own identity so when we come into a classroom with different bodies, there are several different embodiments of that framework. That’s really important to me: how each person brings their own distinctive identity into dance, and how dancers and artists are considering where these traditions have come from. What do we want to uphold? What do we want to deconstruct? And what do we hope to create anew?

Lacy Chaffee

Media and communications coordinator, School of Music, Dance and Theatre

480-727-5550 lacychaffee@asu.edu

Theatre alum shares about research, life in Ireland as a Fulbright Scholar

Esther Almazán and Golding Kidd taking a selfie at the James Joyce Tower and Museum in Dublin.

Arizona State University alum Esther Almazán, who earned her MFA in dramatic writing in 2020 from the School of Music, Dance and Theatre, has spent the past year researching and writing in Galway, Ireland, as a Fulbright Scholar. Her work focuses on studying the intersectionality between Native Americans and Native Irish.Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Almazán received the Kennedy Center Latinx...

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Theatre alum shares about research, life in Ireland as a Fulbright Scholar

May 23, 2023

Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Almazán received the Kennedy Center Latinx Playwriting Award for Distinguished Achievement, the ariZoni Theatre Awards of Excellence and the Gammage Theatre Scholar Award, and was a Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semifinalist. Her original play “Indian School” was presented by ASU Theatre. Esther Almazán and Golding Kidd at James Joyce Tower and Museum in Dublin. Download Full Image

A culmination of her Fulbright research project, “A Yaqui and Béal: Yoeme and Irish in Conversation,” was presented on May 6 at the O’Donoghue Theatre as part of the Galway Theatre Festival. The theatrical piece combines family legends and wisdom from Irish and Yoeme elders, with conceived work that includes audience input.

“I decided to open it up to other people, not just me collecting verbatim interviews and staging those, but also opening it up to Irish playwrights,” she said. “Ireland is like the land of the playwright, so many of the greats come from here.”

Almazán said one challenge of this experience was simply getting settled into a new place, exacerbated by the housing crisis in Ireland: “For a minute I thought I was gonna have to live in my car!”

But after a lot of persistence and a chance meeting, Almazán found a place to live — a renovated storage space in a small town, with views of lush green hills right out her front door.

“It has everything I need. It's awesome. But I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere,” she said.

Almazán drove to the university four times a week to audit classes and work with students. She said after working as a playwright, it was out of her comfort zone to take acting classes again.

“I haven't been an actor for a very long time. I have been directing and playwriting, and that's my comfort zone now, but I am saying yes to everything,” she said. “I'm just saying yes and jumping in and learning and meeting people.”

Almazán was able to meet actors she needed for her production in her classes.

“I've got this amazing group of Irish students and one student from Luxembourg,” she said. “They're really eager and excited to work on this project.”

She said that she wanted to gather as many people as possible who were interested in working with her.

“I don't want it to be only through my lens. I want it to be through Irish lenses,” she said.

When not in class or rehearsal, Almazán has been exploring different areas in Ireland. She said that she’s seen numerous connections between her work in the United States and her research in Ireland. While visiting a local pub, the owner shared about the local industrial schools in Ireland.

“I spent three years at ASU, studying the Indian schools, which were industrial boarding schools where children were kidnapped and put in those places, and they found the graves of those children, all leading up to my play ‘Indian School,’” Almazán said. “The first place I walked into in Ireland tells me, ‘Children were dying in these industrial schools, where they were horribly abused and worked to death.’ Just like they were in the U.S. with Native American children.”

Another Irish friend taught her about the practice of preserving fairy rings.

“There's so much ancient history here, teaching us about the earth and how to preserve parts of it,” she said. “And that comes from ancient, ancient warnings to keep things the way they should be.”

Her final project included a variety of perspectives, including work that was devised as audiences entered the space.

“I have this really tremendous group of theater artists who will help devise in the lobby and then bring it on to the stage in real time,” she said. “I got to learn a lot about devising at ASU, with some of the most remarkable people, like Liz Lerman and Michael Rohd.”

Almazán said working with the people in Ireland has been one of the best parts of her experience as a Fulbright Scholar.

“One thing I will take away from this is the strength that I've gained from just being around the Irish people,” she said, “and the kindness that has been shown to me.”