WHO IS RACHEL?
Rachel leans forward, scooping her hands towards the ground. She is wrapped in a light seafoam green tulle, and wears flowers in her hair. Photo by Rachel Keane.
I am a visually impaired multidisciplinary artist-scholar based in Brooklyn, NY. My work grows from the seeds planted by the postmodern tradition and disability aesthetic lineages, exploring experimental approaches to audio description, improvisational time-based performance practices, multi-sensory installation, and destabilizing ocularcentrism in dance performance and practice.
I received a BA and MFA in Dance from SUNY Buffalo State University and Temple University, respectively. Currently, I am a PhD candidate in Dance at Texas Woman’s University, researching the presence of blindness in contemporary dance. I serve as the Advisor of Dance and Disability for the National Dance Education Organization, and was awarded as a 2023 Dance/NYC ‘Disability. Dance. Artistry.’ Dance and Social Justice Fellow. I am on faculty in the Dance Department at Temple University, am the Program Manager of the CUNY Hunter College Dance Education programs, and serve as a Staff Writer and Editorial Board member for thINKingDANCE. I founded and artistically direct RACHEL:dancers (spoken as Rachel and Dancers), a multi-modal dance performance company, as well as co-direct Bashi Arts, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit I co-founded with Enya-Kalia Jordan.
My artistic and scholarly work has been presented nationally and internationally. Some of my favorite venues include Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church (2025), Mark Morris Dance Center (2025) La MaMa Experimental Theater (2024), Dixon Place (2024), the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (2024), the University of the West Indies Barbados (2018), the NDEO national conferences (2018, 2019, 2022, 2024, 2025), the Philadelphia Youth Dance Fest (2021), and more. I have worked and studied with esteemed choreographers including Meriàn Soto, Heidi Latsky, Sidra Bell, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, Dr. S. Ama Wray, Awilda Sterling-Duprey, Carlos R.A. Jones, and as a principal dancer for Enya Kalia Creations, among others.
I received a BA and MFA in Dance from SUNY Buffalo State University and Temple University, respectively. Currently, I am a PhD candidate in Dance at Texas Woman’s University, researching the presence of blindness in contemporary dance. I serve as the Advisor of Dance and Disability for the National Dance Education Organization, and was awarded as a 2023 Dance/NYC ‘Disability. Dance. Artistry.’ Dance and Social Justice Fellow. I am on faculty in the Dance Department at Temple University, am the Program Manager of the CUNY Hunter College Dance Education programs, and serve as a Staff Writer and Editorial Board member for thINKingDANCE. I founded and artistically direct RACHEL:dancers (spoken as Rachel and Dancers), a multi-modal dance performance company, as well as co-direct Bashi Arts, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit I co-founded with Enya-Kalia Jordan.
My artistic and scholarly work has been presented nationally and internationally. Some of my favorite venues include Movement Research at Judson Memorial Church (2025), Mark Morris Dance Center (2025) La MaMa Experimental Theater (2024), Dixon Place (2024), the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (2024), the University of the West Indies Barbados (2018), the NDEO national conferences (2018, 2019, 2022, 2024, 2025), the Philadelphia Youth Dance Fest (2021), and more. I have worked and studied with esteemed choreographers including Meriàn Soto, Heidi Latsky, Sidra Bell, Abdur-Rahim Jackson, Dr. S. Ama Wray, Awilda Sterling-Duprey, Carlos R.A. Jones, and as a principal dancer for Enya Kalia Creations, among others.
email me ︎ rachelrepinz@gmail.com
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
A DRAFT —
I love the process of making something together.
I love letting things unfold. I love releasing control over the work and letting it happen. Caring about and building something together, something that we know will cease to exist the moment we let it. Or, something that will live on for as long as we tend to it.
I love when dance feels real. I love dances that talk. I love talking and dancing. I love to laugh. I love cacophony, and I love the quiet hum.
I build worlds that disappear as we make them, only to remain in the threads of collective memory. My choreographic practice brings together audio description, disability aesthetics, improvisation, contemporary techniques, postmodern frameworks, and most importantly, the relentless joy of dancing together.
It is about honesty, vulnerability, and showing up as you are. It’s about the joy of being human. It’s about being messy. It’s about hanging on until the very end.
I love the process of making something together.
I love letting things unfold. I love releasing control over the work and letting it happen. Caring about and building something together, something that we know will cease to exist the moment we let it. Or, something that will live on for as long as we tend to it.
I love when dance feels real. I love dances that talk. I love talking and dancing. I love to laugh. I love cacophony, and I love the quiet hum.
I build worlds that disappear as we make them, only to remain in the threads of collective memory. My choreographic practice brings together audio description, disability aesthetics, improvisation, contemporary techniques, postmodern frameworks, and most importantly, the relentless joy of dancing together.
It is about honesty, vulnerability, and showing up as you are. It’s about the joy of being human. It’s about being messy. It’s about hanging on until the very end.
Rachel balances on one leg, floating her arm upwards and look off into the distance. She wears all black with bright orange socks. Photo by maura nguyễn donohue.TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Rachel wears a white t-shirt and black pants with hands in the middle of gesturing. She smiles brightly and looks over her shoulder to a student out of frame. A list of community agreements is posted on the wall behind her. Photo by Stewart Villio.A DRAFT —
I believe that dance is inherently of, by, and for the people.
Thus, my teaching practice is a practice of togetherness, constantly being built and rebuilt by the people who are in the room. My approach to teaching dance is grounded in historical inquiry, cultural responsivity, and collective care. This practice engages theory and practice to encourage students to understand all of the forms dance can, has, and will, take, and their roles within this ecosystem.
From exploring technical rigor in the studio to embodying archival work in the lecture hall, I encourage students to activate their agency within the dance classroom as experts in their own right; bringing with them their own experiences, embodied realities, cultural heritages, and unique understandings. By honoring the experiences and knowledge that each of my students enters the classroom with, we co-create a collaborative space that activates students' openness to curiosity, exploration, and excitement for the work.
I do not define dance as a fixed being—it is constantly in motion, both through history and our bodies. Through this approach, I guide students through embodied practices that connect them with the future, past, and present, and encourage them to build a practice of inquiry in their own emerging processes and practices. This student-centered, inquiry-based, approach underpins any class I teach, whether it be an undergraduate contemporary technique course, a graduate-level practicum course, creative movement with toddlers, or teaching non-dancers about simple somatic practices to improve their daily lives.
I lead with a critical pedagogy, one which is framed by Disability Justice and anti-racist principles. This inclusive pedagogical philosophy is centered on a commitment to constantly assessing, improving, and ensuring that my work is accessible for all my students, providing the tools needed to show up as their whole selves. I actively reject the notion that dancers must leave their baggage at the studio door, and instead take a holistic approach which invites students to be present, in whatever form that may take. I am constantly curating and shifting my teaching materials to reflect the students in the room and the current happenings in the field, and expand beyond normative, colonized, notions of what constitutes dance and being a dancer.
I teach because I must. Because we must. It is one of the most important commitments I am called to make, over and over again. I teach to share the joy that is dancing and learning together, to as many students as I can. I teach to show my students that dance is not an individual endeavor, but one that is collective. One that moves together, creates together, cares together, and thrives as we tend to it together.
I believe that dance is inherently of, by, and for the people.
Thus, my teaching practice is a practice of togetherness, constantly being built and rebuilt by the people who are in the room. My approach to teaching dance is grounded in historical inquiry, cultural responsivity, and collective care. This practice engages theory and practice to encourage students to understand all of the forms dance can, has, and will, take, and their roles within this ecosystem.
From exploring technical rigor in the studio to embodying archival work in the lecture hall, I encourage students to activate their agency within the dance classroom as experts in their own right; bringing with them their own experiences, embodied realities, cultural heritages, and unique understandings. By honoring the experiences and knowledge that each of my students enters the classroom with, we co-create a collaborative space that activates students' openness to curiosity, exploration, and excitement for the work.
I do not define dance as a fixed being—it is constantly in motion, both through history and our bodies. Through this approach, I guide students through embodied practices that connect them with the future, past, and present, and encourage them to build a practice of inquiry in their own emerging processes and practices. This student-centered, inquiry-based, approach underpins any class I teach, whether it be an undergraduate contemporary technique course, a graduate-level practicum course, creative movement with toddlers, or teaching non-dancers about simple somatic practices to improve their daily lives.
I lead with a critical pedagogy, one which is framed by Disability Justice and anti-racist principles. This inclusive pedagogical philosophy is centered on a commitment to constantly assessing, improving, and ensuring that my work is accessible for all my students, providing the tools needed to show up as their whole selves. I actively reject the notion that dancers must leave their baggage at the studio door, and instead take a holistic approach which invites students to be present, in whatever form that may take. I am constantly curating and shifting my teaching materials to reflect the students in the room and the current happenings in the field, and expand beyond normative, colonized, notions of what constitutes dance and being a dancer.
I teach because I must. Because we must. It is one of the most important commitments I am called to make, over and over again. I teach to share the joy that is dancing and learning together, to as many students as I can. I teach to show my students that dance is not an individual endeavor, but one that is collective. One that moves together, creates together, cares together, and thrives as we tend to it together.
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