Alana Gerecke

A 2011 Trudeau Scholar and a 2009 Queen's Fellow, Alana Gerecke completed her PhD in the English Department at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). Her dissertation examined the spatial and social politics of contemporary dance set in public, urban places along Canada's west coast. As she works to complete her doctorate, Gerecke is developing a praxis project examining the social choreography of flash mobs in a Canadian context. She has presented her research internationally and has been published in Dance Research Journal, Performance Research, Canadian Theatre Review, The Dance Current, and Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s (Dance Collection Danse, 2012). Gerecke is a Graduate Fellow with SFU's Institute for Performance Studies. Recently, she served on the organizing committee of the Canadian Society for Dance Studies conference (2014) and was an invited participant in the prestigious Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar (2013). Also a professional contemporary dancer, Gerecke is a co-founder of the site-specific improvisation group, Behind Open Doors Arts Collective (2004-2013). She was a company member with EDAM Dance (2006-2013) and has danced with various companies including Battery Opera, Projet In Situ, Jennifer Clark Projects, Mutable Subject, LINK Dance, and others. Alana continues to perform as an active independent dance artist, dance facilitator, and teacher.