Shelby Williams-Gonzalez

3:30pm

Auditorium

Afro-Brazilian Dance Workshop

Shelby Williams-Gonzalez (choreographer / dancer) is a proud native Angelino, mom, wife, and company member of the national touring Afro-Brazilian dance company, Viver Brasil. As a member of the company for over 12years, Shelby has served as their Rehearsal Director and is currently the company’s contributing choreographer. Her most recent work with the company, “Revealed,” explored the intersection of traditional Orixa (Afro-Brazilian Deities) dance and current racial and social inequities resulting in over-policed communities and mass killings of black bodies both in the United States and Brazil. Shelby has also danced with LA-based groups such as Diana MacNeil and the Posthouse Dance Group, The Yorke Dance Project, and Louise Reichlin and Dancers. She has a Bachelor’s in Dance and Anthropology from UC Berkeley. While attending Berkeley she was a member of the Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble, Patricia Reedy Dancers and Robert Moses’ Kin. Shelby completed the Silvestre Technique program in Salvador, Bahia, where she was certified as an instructor of the Brazilian based modern dance technique. As an arts educator, Shelby serves as the Development and Communications Director for artworxLA (formerly The HeArt Project), a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing the arts to alternative high schools. As an artist, she draws from her diverse foundation in contemporary dance, martial arts, and traditional and contemporary Afro-Brazilian movement.