Dance Podcast Episode 158: Dancing Our Roots, Elisa De La Rosa
#158: In this episode of the Dance Behind the Screen Podcast, host Martheya Nygaard Scott sits down with Elisa De La Rosa, choreographer, educator, researcher, Associate Professor of Dance at Texas Woman’s University, and Artistic Director of De La Rosa Dance Company.
Elisa shares how her upbringing in the Rio Grande Valley and her Mexican American identity shape her work as an artist and educator. Together, Martheya and Elisa explore cultural memory, belonging, and the body as a living archive—and what happens when the cultures we carry with us are missing from traditional dance education.
From memories of Selena, Tejano music, and dancing with family to incorporating her grandmother’s migration story into her choreography, Elisa reflects on the power of honoring where we come from through movement.
The conversation also looks toward the future of dance education: expanding beyond traditional modern and ballet-centered curricula, listening to students, creating space for culturally rooted practices, and building pathways for the next generation of artists. Elisa also shares her experience serving on the kNOwBOX dance Film Festival jury and how dance film can connect us across cultures and borders.
In This Episode
Dance as a living archive of culture and memory
Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley and finding identity through movement
Bringing family stories and lived experience into choreography
Representation and belonging in dance education
Expanding dance curricula beyond modern and ballet
Listening to students as a catalyst for institutional change
Creating pathways through culturally rooted dance practices
Dance film as a bridge between cultures
Lifelong learning and saying NO to the BOX
Chapters
00:00 Meet Elisa De La Rosa
02:40 Flash Four: Resources, Culture + the Borderlands
04:20 Finding Cultural Identity Through Dance
08:45 When Culture Is Missing From Dance Education
14:00 Honoring Family Stories Through Choreography
17:00 Tortillas y Lágrimas: Memory, Migration + Belonging
19:00 Dance as Embodied Research
22:00 Rethinking Culturally Rooted Dance Education
25:00 Listening to Students + Creating Change
30:00 Preparing Dancers for an Evolving Future
33:30 Measuring Impact + Building New Pathways
38:00 Inside the NBFF Jury Experience
41:00 Dance Film as a Bridge Across Cultures
44:00 How Elisa Says NO to the BOX
47:00 Staying Connected + Resources
Elisa De La Rosa
Associate Professor of Dance at Texas Woman's University, Artistic Director and Founder of De La Rosa Dance Company
Elisa De La Rosa, daughter of migrant farmworkers and granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, is Associate Professor of Dance at Texas Woman’s University. Hailing from the U.S.–Mexico borderlands of Tamaulipas and the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, she is a choreographer, movement educator, and artistic director of De La Rosa Dance Company. Her research examines Pre-Hispanic Indigenous, Mexican, and Tex-Mex dance forms through embodied practice, ancestral memory, and lived experience. Engaging the Latinx diaspora, her work explores dance as a living archive of identity, migration, resistance, and cultural memory. She holds degrees from Texas Woman’s University and Montclair State University.
Connect with Elisa De La Rosa
Instagram: @foreverdancer
This season of the Dance Behind the Screen Podcast is supported in part by the Moody Fund for the Arts and our generous individual Season Sponsors,
Dexter & Jenel Evans and Helen & James Gallas.
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