Jessica Fiala

Dancer

Jessica Fiala has studied Bharatanatyam with Ranee Ramaswamy and Aparna Ramaswamy since 2006. She has toured with Ragamala throughout the U.S. and to India, the U.K., and the United Arab Emirates, with performance highlights including Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kennedy Center, Krishna Gana Sabha (Chennai, India), Jacob’s Pillow, and The Joyce Theater’s American Dance Platform. Jessica is a teacher at the Ragamala Training Center and has led and supported outreach activities across the U.S. for audiences from K-12 students to senior citizens, as well as teaching a 2013 workshop in Bangkok, Thailand. Her dance training began in rhythm tap and modern/postmodern dance and, outside of Ragamala, she has performed in projects by Ashwini Ramaswamy, Vanessa Voskuil, Kaleena Miller, Jeremy Bensussan, Gadu Doushin, Anasooya Abraham, Chris Schlichting, Keanse Sense of Rhythm, and Colette Illarde and Margo Abdo O’Dell.

Jessica holds an interdisciplinary master's degree from the University of Minnesota focused in Museum Studies & Cultural Studies. Her research has ranged from transcultural Bharatanatyam practice to postcolonial museum exhibitions, site-based dance, and political public art. She has presented at conferences at the University of Naples “l’Orientale” (2013), the University of Shanghai (2016, 2017, 2018), the University of Pittsburgh (2016), Pomona College (2016), and Hong Kong Baptist University (2017). Her writing is included in the anthology The Ruined Archive (2014) and the journals Diálogos com a arte (2016, 2019) and the Journal of Somaesthetics (2020). Jessica was Research Coordinator for the 2015 International Award for Public Art and is currently a Research Associate at the consulting firm 8 Bridges Workshop.