Gabriela Estrada

Assistant Professor, Dance

M. Gabriela Estrada is thrilled to join the University of Houston’s McGovern College of the Arts as an Assistant Professor of Dance. She is a multicultural dance artist, educator, choreographer, journalist, and filmmaker committed to promoting diversity, equity, and belonging. Estrada holds a BA and an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Flamenco Interdisciplinary Studies from the Department of Sociocultural Anthropology and Philology at the University of Seville, Spain. Her creative and pedagogical experience embraces western theatrical dance forms, musical theatre, and flamenco, as well as Spanish and Latin American dance.

Estrada’s academic research, publications, and creative work have specialized in the reciprocal influences between ballet and flamenco derived from interdisciplinary collaborations, as exemplified in Ballets Russes’ Tricorne. Examples of her work include choreographic advocacy initiatives such as Not a Single Carmen More!, the short documentary film ENI9MA: The Legend of Félix, the feature-length screenplay False Premises, and the monograph titled The Choreographic Development of The Three-Cornered Hat Through the 20th Century, written in both, English and Spanish.

Estrada maintains dynamic collaborations with arts and cultural institutions in the US and abroad, such as the Instituto Sonorense de Cultura (Mexico) and Flamenco Vivo (New York City). In Mexico, Estrada founded and directed Dance Collage School of Dance, affiliated with the Royal Academy of Dance, from which her DCG dance group emerged. As founding faculty at the University of Sonora’s Theatre and Dance program, she developed courses in dance science and movement analysis. In Spain, Estrada led musical theatre dance education initiatives that invigorated Seville’s tap dance pedagogy and programming. Her dance education experience also includes teaching at Ballet Hispánico, where she managed its community engagement programs, and at East Carolina University, where she co-chaired the Inclusion and Diversity Action Committee.

Currently, Estrada serves the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) as Advisory Board Director of Research and participates with the Dance Studies Association’s Long Nineteenth Century and the Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Dance Studies working groups. Estrada is also an active member of the New York Women in Film and Television, Mexico’s Women in Film Association, and Sundance Collab.