Ray Eliot Schwartz Ray Eliot Schwartz is a dance artist, educator, researcher, and administrator with over 38 years of experience in the field. He holds an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin, a B.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as a minor in Religious Studies with a focus on South and Southeast Asian Religion, Art, and Culture. He graduated high school from the North Carolina School of the Arts. Ray is a certified Body Mind Centering® Practitioner, Guild Certified Feldenkrais Method® Practitioner, and Danceability Teacher Orientation graduate. His somatic studies also include Zero-Balancing®, Gross Anatomy (Dissection), Bio Mechanics of Sport, Molecular Cell Biology, Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and Traditional Thai Massage.
He is a native English speaker, has fluent proficiency in spoken and written Spanish, and investigates the interface of somatic movement education and contemporary dance practice.
Ray has coordinated academic and professional training programs, and delivered content to multiple constituencies through inclusive pedagogical methods. He served as a professor of dance at the University of the Americas-Puebla in México from 2006-2022 and was the Academic Coordinator of the Dance Program from 2008-2018. He was the founder, in 2007, of Performática: Foro Internacional de Danza Contemporánea y Artes del Movimiento, and has been a research associate at the Center for Mind Body Movement since 2010.
Ray co-founded four contemporary dance projects in the southern U.S.: Sheep Army, The Zen Monkey Project, Steve’s House Dance Collective and THEM. He has been a guest artist for diverse populations in the U.S., South East Asia, South America, and Mexico and has served on the faculty of the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, MELT, the ZMP Summer Dance Intensive, the Colorado College Summer Dance Festival and SFADI, among others.
He has coordinated and facilitated more than 25 arts and culture festivals and educational intensives over a period of 30 years, resulting in over 150 productions and hundreds of live performance events.
Ray's independent research, creative practice, and scholarship has been presented at and in numerous regional, national, and international conferences, performances, community settings, and publications.