Robert Mulvey

Fulbright/University of Roehampton Award in Dance

Robert Mulvey received his Baccalaureate in Arts from Columbia University, majoring in Philosophy with a concentration in Dance, and graduating magna cum laude with departmental honors in both dance and philosophy. Prior to his undergraduate studies, he performed with numerous companies around the United States including San Francisco Ballet, Washington Ballet, Los Angeles Ballet, Nevada Ballet Theatre, and Cirque du Soleil. Robert received his training from the Washington School of Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet School. During his time performing, Robert was involved in outreach initiatives. At Los Angeles Ballet, he spearheaded and directed two initiatives that brought dance to underserved populations through classes and performances. He is deeply committed to the idea that dance is a crucial resource for healthy and thriving communities. Robert's research investigates how 20th- and 21st-century improvisational dance frameworks circulate the globe through economies of pedagogy and performance, how these frameworks absorb non-western practices such as trance, ritual, and performance into their performance, and how, through this subsumption, they inscribe colonial logics of race, sexuality, and gender into their practice. He believes these frameworks offer a groundwork for an embodied ethics for humanity, teaching the world how to navigate systems of disciplinary and institutional power. During his time at the University of Roehampton as a Fulbright Scholar, Robert aims to join his scholarship and practice. By mining the repository of his dance career, he hopes to understand more deeply how movement — even in the smallest and most ordinary gesture — can convey meaning, and how that meaning can be communicated through scholarship to be exhibited in institutional settings like museums.