Hye-Won Hwang

Associate Professor of Practice, Dance

Hye-Won Hwang earned a Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California, Riverside. She also holds an MA in Dance Studies from the Laban Center, London (now called Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance), and an MA in Dance Education from New York University. She received a BA in Dance at Ewha Woman’s University where she graduated magna cum laude. Dr. Hwang is also a certified movement analyst (CMA) and a certified yoga teacher.

Prior to joining the Dance Program at UNL, Dr. Hwang taught dance practice and theory courses at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Hwang joined the dance faculty at the Glenn Korff School of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2015, where she is now an Associate Professor of Practice in Dance. She has taught Intermediate and Advanced Modern Dance Techniques, Dance Composition, and Dance History courses. She (co-)directed the annual Student Dance Project (2015 and 2022) and created modern dance pieces for the Evenings of Dance (2016-2023), the annual faculty and guest artist dance concert at UNL. In 2016, Dr. Hwang performed her original choreography entitled “Reset” at Kimball Recital Hall as a part of Glenn Korff Day Celebration Performance. Dr. Hwang was awarded two of the Hixson-Lied College’s highest honors: the Junior Faculty Teaching Award (2018) and the College Distinguished Teaching Award (2020).  

As a dance artist, she performed repertoires of classical ballet, modern and contemporary dance, Korean traditional dance, musical theater dance, and experimental dance with music and interactive technology at recognizable venues in Korea, Europe, and the United States. The venues include the National Theater (Korea), Se-Jong Cultural Center (Korea), the Ailey Citigroup Theater (US), St. Mark’s Church (US), 92nd Street Y (US), Whitney Museum of American Art (US), Frederick Loewe Theater (US), the Johnny Carson Theater (US), Kimball Recital Hall (US), the Edinburgh Playhouse (UK), Casa Paganini (Italy), and Yugoslav Drama Theatre (Serbia). Her original choreography and performances promote intercultural identity and a cross-cultural understanding. For example, Dr. Hwang utilized both Western and Eastern dance ideals into her own choreography entitled “The Wave of Moment.” This hybrid choreographic work was performed at St. Mark’s Church in-The-Bowery in New York City in 2005 and reviewed in The New York Times in the same year. She also utilized her hybrid approach for collaborative concerts of live dance, music, and/or visual arts, entitled “Salpuri-Bach” (2017), “Desert of My Own Self” (2018), "LiFETiME" (2018), "The Journey of Life Through Music and Dance" (2019), and "Reconstructing Memories; Rebuilding Relationships" (2021). 

As a dance scholar, her research interests lie in the global circulation of dance and other bodily practices, linked to issues of body, gender, sexuality, class, political economy, institutions, and identity. Dr. Hwang has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Cultural Policy, the Dance Research Journal of Korea, the Korean Research Journal of Dance Documentation, and Conversations: Across the Field of Dance Studies. These include "Black-Salpuri: The Innovation of a Traditional Korean Dance Form" (2023), “ Expressing Cultural Identity and Performing Otherness: Salpuri Performance in the Midwestern United States” (2017), “Contact Improvisation: Touch and Hidden Political Ideologies” (2016), “Creating Twenty-First Korean Bodies: Public Movement Education Practice, Cultural Policy, and Therapeutic Ethos” (2016), and “Institutional Ideologies of Mastering Body and Movement: A Comparative Analysis of Feuillet and Laban Systems” (2015). She also contributed an article-length chapter to the anthology, Dance Theory: As Afterlives of Ephemeral Dance (2016), published by Ewha Woman’s University Press. In addition, she presented research papers and workshops at numerous scholarly meetings, including the International Symposium of the Korean Society of Dance, the Dance Studies Association Conference, the Pacific Sociological Association Conference, the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific Dance Festival and Conference, the International Academic Symposium of the Dance Research Institute, the Society of Dance History Scholars/Congress on Research in Dance (SDHS/CORD) conference, and the Nordic Forum of Dance Research/Society of Dance History Scholars (NOFOD/SDHS) conference.

Dr. Hwang’s service extends beyond campus through her involvement with national and international dance and Laban studies associations. She has served on an advisory board member of Dance Research Journal (2022-2025); a board member (North-Central Region) of American College Dance Association (2023-2026); an international editorial board member of The Korean Journal of Dance Studies; an editorial board member of Dance Research Journal of Korea and the Journal of Korean and Asian Arts; a board member at the World Dance Alliance-Korea; a board member at the Institute of Dance and Media; and an Education Management Committee member at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies.