Ana Paula Hofling

Education

Biography

Ana Paula Höfling is Associate Professor of Dance and Graduate Program Director for the MFA in Dance and the MA in Dance Theories and Practices in the School of Dance. She is the author of Staging Brazil: Choreographies of Capoeira (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), an analysis of the role of capoeira in the process of staging Brazilian “national culture” between 1928 and 1974, focusing on issues of race, class, and authorship. Staging Brazil was awarded the 2021 Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research from the Dance Studies Association. She was a Trustee’s Fellow at the National Humanities Center (AY 2021-22), where she worked on her second book manuscript, Dancing Brazil’s Other: Modernism, Race, and Nation (under contract with Oxford University Press), which focuses on mid-century folkloric ballet companies directed by Brazilian choreographers Eros Volúsia, Mercedes Baptista, and Felicitas Barreto. Prior to joining UNCG, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Americas at Wesleyan University. Höfling serves on the Editorial Council of the Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies, where she served as Associate Editor between 2019-2022. She served on the Editorial Board of Dance Research Journal from 2022-2024; in 2024 she was elected Vice President of Publications and Research of the Dance Studies Association. She is also a member of the Brazilian Studies Association and the Latin American Studies Association. Her dance training includes ballet (RAD), Graham technique, and release technique; after practicing capoeira regional for several years, she began training in capoeira angola in 2005 with the Grupo Semente do Jogo de Angola in her hometown Campinas, in Brazil.

Subjects Taught

• DCE 200 Dance Appreciation 
• DCE 405 Choreographies and Choreographers 
• DCE 631 Capoeira History and Practice 
• DCE 610 Dance Studies I: Theories and Methods 
• DCE 611 Dance Studies II: Research Projects 
• DCE 694 Comprehensive Exams/Portfolio Review Preparation 
• DCE 621 Administration of Dance 
• DCE 662 Practicum in Teaching Dance 
• DCE 697 Masters Production Project 
• DCE 695 Independent Study 
• VPA 600x Directed Study 
• HSS 225 Performing Blackness/Imagining Africa in Brazil 

Scholarly Creative/Research Activity

Books

Dancing Brazil’s Other: Modernism, Race, and Nation. (Oxford University Press, under contract).

Staging Brazil: Choreographies of Capoeira. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. (Winner of the 2021 Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize for Dance Research).
Link to Book Review | Link to Chapter

Articles and book chapters

“Global South Archives: Listening and Acknowledging Authorship.” In Dance Research Methodologies: Ethics, Orientations, Practices. Rosemary Candelario and Matthew Henley, editors. London and New York: Routledge, 2023. Link to Article

“Dancing Mestiçagem, Embodying Whiteness: Eros Volúsia’s Bailado Brasileiro.” Dance Research Journal 52.2 (2020). Link to Article

“Pedagogy of the Possessed: Re-thinking the Dancer-Researcher-Performer (BPI) Method in Dance Curricula in Brazil.” Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies. Vol. 6 No. 2, p. 287-307, May-Aug, 2016. Link to Article

“Pedagogia dos possuídos: repensando o método bailarino-pesquisador-intérprete (BPI) no ensino da dança no Brasil.” Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença. Vol. 6 No. 2, p. 287-307, maio-ago, 2016.

“Capoeiras of Bahia.” In Axé Bahia: The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis. Exhibit catalogue. Patrick Polk, Roberto Conduru, Sabrina Gledhill, and Randal Johnson, eds. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA, 2017. Link to Article

“Capoeira.” Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. Taylor and Francis. www.rem.routledge.com., 2016.

“Staging Capoeira, Samba, Maculelê and Candomblé: Viva Bahia’s Choreographies of Afro-Brazilian Folklore for the Global Stage.” In Performing Brazil: Essays on Culture, Identity and the Performing Arts. Kathryn Sanchez and Severino Albuquerque, eds. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015.