Creating liberatory possibilities together Dancer, Educator, Scholar
alexia buono, phd
Dr. Alexia Buono (she/ella/elle) is an abolitionist scholar, educator, somatic practitioner, and dancer. Through Black queer, Chicana/Latina, and abolitionist feminist frameworks, Alexia investigates the operation and disruption of carceral culture across personal, interpersonal, pedagogical, socio-cultural, and institutional landscapes. She studies liberatory pedagogies for young children and pre-service teachers, somatic movement literacy, decolonial curriculum development, and critical arts (re)integration. She remains an active professional dancer and site specific choreographer and is always excited for creative and performance opportunities!
She is a full time faculty Lecturer at the University of Vermont on the unceded land, N'Dakinna, of the Western Abenaki people. She was a 2024 North Star Collective Faculty Fellow through the New England Board of Higher Education's reparative justice initiative. Alexia is a proud member of the Latinx Dance Educators Alliance, and enjoys working collaboratively on liberatory, interdisciplinary projects and coalitions with educators, dancers, scholars, and communities around the world. Please do reach out for collaborative opportunities!
"She is phenomenal. Alexia cares deeply about her students and values our learning experiences both inside and outside the classroom. She makes time to build a strong learning community and knows when to step back and encourage student–guided dialogues and give us opportunities to lead learning through inquiry. One of my favorite classes of the semester because she is such a skilled educator and wonderful human."
Latest publications
Creating conditions for arts (re)integration: Exploring (re)encounters of the whos and whys of arts integration [(Re)integering av kunsst: Utforskning av (gjen)møter med <<hvem>> og <<hvorfor>> I kunstintegrering]
by Jusslin, S., Buono, A., Bichão, H. (2024).
In: Kunstfagdidaktik: som kunstnerisk, forskende og oppmerksom undervisningspraksis [Arts education as an artistic, research-based, and mindful teaching practice], Edited By Pernille Østern, T., Illeris, H., Jusslin, S., Holdhus, K., & Nødtvedt Knudsen. Universitetsforlaget
By Alexia Buono (2024)
Multicultural Perspectives, 26(3), pages 203-215.
In: Faculty Learning Communities: Working Towards a more Equitable, Just, and Antiracist Future in Higher Education, Edited By Kristin N. Rainville, Cynthia G. Desrochers, Northridge, David G.; Information Age Publishers
TAILORED TO YOU
Dance Scholarship
Alexia is trained in a variety of dance and somatic forms (including modern, jazz, ballet, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Movement Analysis, Authentic Movement, and contact improvisation) and approaches to choreography and performance (including site-specific collaborations, installation based and multimedia, improvisation, chance choreography, concert dance, and arts-based research). She grew up in a bi-cultural household where she was immersed in social spaces of dancing salsa with her Puerto Rican family.
She has performed in and created site specific and community-oriented work with Jen Leung Johnson (Salisbury, MD), Jungwoong Kim (Philadelphia, PA), SUNY Brockport (Brockport, NY), Joanna Mendl Shaw’s Equus Projects (NYC), Torn Space Theatre (Buffalo, NY), Anne Burnidge Dance (Buffalo, NY), and ArtPark (Lewiston, NY).
Her performative and choreographic scholarship explores how interdisciplinary creative and performing arts, improvisation, and somatic praxes with(in) communities and site specific, place-based work can investigate sociopolitical onto-epistemologies of the bodily self, relationality, and the reclamation of cultural forms.
Testimonials from students during the first semester of covid-19
Alexia was student-nominated for the Presidential Teaching Excellence Award at SUNY Brockport in Spring 2020
"I have never had a professor or teacher like Alexia Buono. She has opened my eyes to a whole different world of learning and different relationship between teacher and student...Many of my classmates have described her class as a breath of fresh air. She is someone who really cares about her students. She cares about their well being. I've never had a professor layout out their format for the class to us as students and genuinely ask for opinions about what we wanted to learn and how we felt about something. Many of us feel that we have gotten more out of her class and have learned more in her class than any of our other ones...In class, much of our time is spent discussing things and working collaboratively with students for a variety of projects. Everyone speaks to the capacity they are comfortable with, but Alexia creates such a welcoming and open space between her and her students there isn't a need to really feel anxious or nervous about speaking. Each class is a new experience and I am always left wanting to talk about it to a friend and tell them all we did or what long term project we are working on. It is such a complex yet simple class that I always look forward to being a part of. Alexia bases her teaching off her students each time we have class. She listens to where each of us are physically, mentally and allows us to participate and do things to the extent that we need to for that day. Sometimes she changes her lesson plan to better fit where we may be. She treats us as equals to her and as human beings."
"Alexia is an amazing educator. Going to her class the last two semesters has been full of so many adventures. Her pedagogy of education should be shared with all teachers on campus. I have never been in a class where I have felt so cared for. She loves us all so much and cares about our wellbeing, and she lets us all have a voice. Most teachers think that if you include those things, you won’t get a proper education. But they are wrong. In my last three years of college I have learned the most in Alexias class. She is an INCREDIBLY smart woman and I love hearing everything she has to offer. More people need to be like her. My life has changed because of her. I feel so welcomed, I feel like I actually matter in this world, and I truly truly have learned so much in her class that I can take with me into my future classroom as an educator. I hope to teach my students the same way Alexia has taught all of us. Truly an amazing person."
"Alexia cares for the well being of her students more than any professor I have ever had. She gets away from traditional pedagogical ways and teaches in a way that is modern and much more fitting for this generation. She fits her lesson plans to her students and is super engaged during class time being sure that her students get the absolute most out of every single class. I really appreciate her approach to teaching that is quite innovative and seems to really be working for everyone involved."
"Alexia puts the well-being of her students first. She makes us want to learn. She is one of my only professors that I actually take something from her class and know I am going to use it in my future. She is inspiring and I wish all my classes were like hers. She is so passionate about her work and her students. She gets rid of the whole hierarchy between students and professors, to allow us students to still be treated equally. She has a lot of respect from both me and my entire class for this."