Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for 'Is a Hum a Warning?' a performance-lecture and Q&A by Choreographer and certified American Ballet Theatre Method instructor Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad.
Wednesday, October 15, 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Class of '56 Dance Studio Theatre (SB 10), Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
Roya will also host an open level ballet class on Thursday, October 16, 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm, in Studio 320, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
This event is free and open to the public.
Choreographer Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad shares and reflects on her interdisciplinary work and career shaped by her upbringing as a first-generation Persian and Spanish American. Spanning commercial dance projects, writing, film, and stage commissions, her practice weaves personal and cultural histories into contemporary performance. This artist talk includes fragments from her newest research, Is a Hum a Warning?—a performance lecture that explores how rupture becomes reclamation and how sound and gesture can hold protest, pleasure, and futurity as part of her ongoing work as a Persian movement researcher.
Is a Hum a Warning? is curated by Assistant Professor of the Practice Danielle Russo & the 2025/26 PMA Dance Programming: Dancing Home/Land.
Made possible by the generosity and support of the Department of Performing & Media Arts at Cornell University
Content warning: Themes around trauma will be discussed during the performance-lecture event on October 15.
Roya Carreras Fereshtehnejad is a half-Persian, Andalusian first-generation artist raised Muslim in the U.S. Working at the intersection of dance, writing, and visual art, she approaches the body as protest, archive, and mirror. Her practice moves through improvisation, magic realism, and embodied storytelling to excavate themes of migration, surveillance, femme experience, and collective humanism. Her recovery from cancer has further expanded her research into movement as survival, healing, and futurity, opening new dimensions in her practice around care and resilience. Her most recent work premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston with Boston Dance Theater. She has also created original works for Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company and Peridance Contemporary Dance Company. Alongside her concert work, Carreras has developed notable commercial and film projects, collaborating with recording artists such as Paris Paloma (for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”), Laura Dreyfuss, Angélica Garcia, and Pussy Riot, as well as platforms including Spotify, Jolie, and Facebook—expanding her practice across mediums and audiences. As a performer, she has worked closely with Barak Marshall at BODYTRAFFIC, Bryan Arias, Danielle Russo Performance Project, and Lux Boreal Danza Contemporánea in Tijuana, Mexico. She holds an MFA in Dance from Bennington College, where her research into recovery and futurity culminated in Is a Hum a Warning?—a performance lecture exploring sound, rupture, and reclamation.
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