Román Baca is a classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer. In 2001, recognizing his desire to defend the defenseless, he took a hiatus from dance and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving as a machine-gunner and fire-team leader in Fallujah, Iraq during the Iraq War. After the war, Román returned to dance and co-founded Exit12 Dance Company, which tells veterans’ stories choreographically, to increase cross-cultural understanding and heal divisions. Exit12 has delivered its programming in multiple conventional and unconventional performance spaces across the world.
Alongside Román’s work with Exit12 he is also an Early Career Researcher at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire, a Junior Research Scientist with the USAF/USN Research Unit, and a Ph.D. Candidate at York St. John University in the UK studying the intersection of dance and war. Earlier this year Román worked as an Arts Envoy with the US State Department to Nigeria where he conducted creative workshops with paramilitary, police, and charitable organizations on arts and health. Román completed his MFA at Trinity Laban and was the 2019 awardee of the Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award for his research into the dance and the military.
To learn more about Exit12 Dance Company, visit: https://exit12danceco.org
Resources:
To learn more about Stephen Wolfert and the DE-CRUIT initiative, where veterans find a path to healing through Shakespeare, visit: https://www.decruit.org
Román also mentions the National Intrepid Center of Excellence(NICoE) at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the research of Allison Winters Fisher: https://walterreed.tricare.mil/NICoE
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Episode information:
What's Work Got to Do With Supporting Veteran Through Art and Dance?
Guest: Román Baca
Host: Nichole Guilfoy
Produced and edited by: Helen Schuckers
Written by: Helen Schuckers and Anjali Rameshbabu
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