Faculty and staff

Dr. Seónagh Odhiambo
Dance

Dr. Seónagh Odhiambo (M.A., Ph.D.) joined the CSULA faculty in Fall 2009. She defines dance as a point of contact through which ideas, inspiration, movement, and meaning travel. Both artist and scholar, Dr. Odhiambo examines theories of the body and creativity through dance processes.

Dr. Odhiambo teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the roles of dance and theatre in society and history, promoting intercultural inquiry and communication, and the arts of creating, performing, and disseminating original dances and artistic and scholarly work. She is active in developing arts-in-education partnerships, intercultural and interdisciplinary exchanges, and arts-based research and performance. She works in partnership with Los Angeles schools, including students and communities underserved in dance and aesthetic education. She provides advanced students at CSULA with opportunities to teach school aged children, and to perform their dance works in Los Angeles venues.

Interested in movement invention and communication through the body, Dr. Odhiambo founded Asava Dance, company in residence at Plaza de la Raza. Her choreography brings together modern dance techniques, African influences, and pedestrian gestures with live music. Dr. Odhiambo sometimes involves audiences in contributing to the creative process, and meaningful topics about social and environmental justice inform the dancers’ movements and gestures. Asava Dance's Music Director Bennie Maupin, legendary woodwind instrumentalist and composer, premieres original music with the company. The group has toured internationally, giving performances, workshops and educational lectures.

Dr. Odhiambo’s scholarly research offers a perspective on the body as a zone of critical praxis. Her theoretical reflections radically expand the areas of dance theory, dance education and curriculum theory. As a Fisher Center Fellow, Dr. Odhiambo created unique choreography exercises that lay a foundation for somatically-oriented critical pedagogy in dance history.

Seónagh Odhiambo, Ph.D.
Office: King Hall 5104
Phone: 323 343 5130
email: sodhiam@calstatela.edu