Angelica Monteiro

Professor Angelica Monteiro is a faculty member in the Dance Department at Amherst College's College of Arts and Sciences. Born and raised in northern Brazil near the mouth of the Amazon River, her work bridges urban and rainforest environments through movement practices.

Her research focuses on:

• Embodied storytelling through her Cuíra methodology
• Integration of Brazilian and U.S. street dances (Carimbó, Lundu, Waacking, Tecnobrega, Passinho, House, Hip Hop)
• Amazonian traditional dances and cosmology from ribeirinho perspectives
• Interdisciplinary approaches combining dance with visual arts, photography, slam poetry, and zines

Professor Monteiro's creative practice merges autoethnography, ethnography, and somatic techniques to explore how dance functions as social science and how people serve as living archives of cultural knowledge.

Her notable awards include Planet Texas 2050 (2022-2024), Dougherty Arts Center residency (2024), and EmergeNYC (2021), reflecting recognition of her interdisciplinary approach to dance and cultural preservation.

She teaches courses in embodied storytelling, interdisciplinary composition, Brazilian and U.S. street dances, Amazonian traditional dances, improvisation, performance as research, and Amazonian cosmology, bringing her unique perspective shaped by both Brazilian and American dance traditions.