The School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA) at Simon Fraser University is excited to welcome three new faculty members for the 2021 fall term: NiNi Dongnier, Miwa Matreyek, and Nadia Shihab.
NiNi Dongnier is a choreographer, dancer, and interdisciplinary artist, founder of Field Motion, and co-founder of NUUM Collective. Her practice takes many forms, from dance, performance, and theater, to moving-image, programming, soft sculpture, and text. Rooted in northern trans-border nomadic culture, views of nature, philosophy, and art, her work is a continuous exploration of the metaphysics of the human body, its motion, and its relation to specific spaces and times. She holds an MFA (Choreography and Technology) from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, having previously graduated Summa Cum Laude from Beijing Dance Academy with a BA and a MA (Ethnic and Folk Dance), and she was also a visiting scholar at SUNY Purchase College (Contemporary Dance). She has previously taught at Barnard College – Columbia University as a visiting lecturer, CUNY Hunter College Dance Department as an adjunct assistant professor, and was tenured faculty at the Beijing Dance Academy-China’s premier dance conservatory from 2012-2021. Her work has been presented internationally, and she was an artist in residencies at Media Art Exploration Lab w/NUUM, The Movement Lab of Barnard College-Columbia University w/NUUM, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, and the American Dance Festival ICR Program. Recent projects include commissions from Shanghai International Dance Center, Beijing Dance Academy, and Media Art Xploration Festival.
Miwa Matreyek is an animator, designer, and performer. Coming from a background in animation, she creates live, interdisciplinary performances that integrate projected animations at the intersection of cinematic and theatrical, fantastical and physical, and the hand-made and digital. Her work exists in a dreamlike visual space that makes invisible worlds visible, often weaving surreal and poetic narratives of conflict between humanity and nature as embodied performed experiences. She has presented her work internationally, including animation/film festivals, theater/performance festivals, art museums, science museums, tech conferences, and universities. A few past presenters include TED, MOMA, SFMOMA, New Frontier at Sundance Film Festival, PUSH festival, Lincoln Center, Walker Art Center, and many more. Her newest solo piece, Infinitely Yours, was awarded the grand prize for Prix Arts Electronica’s Computer Animation category, and is a 2013 Creative Capital award recipient. She is the co-founder and core collaborator of Cloud Eye Control.
Nadia Shihab is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores the personal, the relational, and the diasporic. Her studio practice includes film, collage and sound. She is the director of several short films and the feature-length film JADDOLAND, which was awarded five festival jury awards, including the Independent Spirit “Truer than Fiction” Award, and went on to broadcast for two seasons on US public television. Her work has shown in exhibitions and festivals internationally, and she is the recipient of fellowships and support from the Sundance Institute, Center for Asian American Media, Firelight Media, and Tribeca Film Institute, and has been an artist-in-residency at the MacDowell Colony and Djerassi Residency. Her creative practice is bolstered by over a decade of experience as a community practitioner. She holds an MFA in Art Practice (UC Berkeley, 2021), as well as a Master in City & Regional Planning (UC Berkeley, 2009)—a degree which grounds her art practice within critical understandings of urban space and practical training in ethnography. Her community-based work includes Fulbright research in southeastern Turkey, and facilitating projects spanning affordable housing preservation, refugee youth mentorship, and community-guided philanthropy. She was raised in west Texas by immigrant parents from Iraq & Yemen.
School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA) PhD in Contemporary Arts
The SCA now offers a PhD in Contemporary Arts, which is a research-intensive program focused on interdisciplinary approaches to the fine and performing arts. Find out more.
The School for the Contemporary Arts recognizes that we are on the unceded and occupied territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.
