Jane Gabriels, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Jane Gabriels, Ph.D. (she/her/they) supports artists, communities and non-profit theaters as Executive Director, Dance West Network (based in “Vancouver”; the traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations).
Gabriels’ dissertation (Concordia University, Montréal) focused on artists, creative processes, curation, and non-profit arts organizations in The Bronx, NY, her professional and artistic home for over 20 years. This dissertation led to ongoing collaborations with Thomas F. DeFrantz to produce Configurations in Motion: Performance curation and communities of color in the US and in Canada with Seika Boye and MJ Thompson in Montréal and in Vancouver, Configurations was produced in collaboration with Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Calgary’s Springboard Performance and the CanDance Network.
Gabriels contributed and co-edited Curating Live Arts: Critical perspectives, essays, and conversations on theory and practice (Berghahn Books, 2018), and booklet: Essays from Configurations in Montreal (published by Duke University and Concordia University, 2018). Gabriels contributed an essay about the work of dance maker Merián Soto to Latina Outsiders (Routledge Press, 2019), and wrote “Fellowship: A Response from a Circle of Cedars” for Imagined Theatres Issue #4: Curating Performance (Oct 2020). Collaborations with Merián Soto led to a research website: familiasdancingcommunity.com. Gabriels was invited to review writings for TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation and Dance Research Journal, and contributed an interview with Thomas F. DeFrantz and Seika Boye to TURBA (Spring 2023).
Gabriels has been a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Performance Studies, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver), and at the Institute of Dance Scholarship at Temple University (Philadelphia).
She has supported the work of Mei-Yin Ng for over a decade, facilitating her 2022 Commission, OH NO! RENEGADE, and her community engaged work, Sit, Eat and Chew 五味杂陈 with Montréal’s Festival Accès Asie, 2023.
Gabriels also supports the non-profit Pepatián: Bronx Arts ColLABorative (Bronx, NY) in collaboration with other artists and community partners.