Nibia Pastrana Santiago obtained a B.A. in Dance/Women’s Studies from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she was a member of the dance company Hincapié, directed by Petra Bravo. She holds a Master in Fine Arts in Dance with a Minor in Latina/o Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Postmaster from a.pass, Brussels. During her time at Illinois, she was awarded the Vannie Sheiry Memorial Dance Scholarship for Outstanding Performance, and the Wanda Nettl Prize for Choreography.  Pastrana was awarded the 2011 Tinker Fellowship Summer Research in Latin America for The Border-Body: History of Panamanian Women as Choreography. She was part of the danceWEB Scholarship Program, ImPulsTanz #28 in Vienna, & was a fellow artist at La Práctica (2015-2016) Beta Local, PR where she published her first zine maniobra, bahía o el evento coreográfico. Her approach to choreography is engaged with practices on laziness, disappearance and derivé as means of producing autonomous compositions vis-à-vis site and spectators. Based in Santurce, she co-directs LA ESPECTACULAR—Artists Residency with Gisela Rosario Ramos. Nibia has performed in works by DD Dorvillier/Human Future Dance Corps, Nickels Sunshine, & Jennifer Monson/iLAND. Currently, she serves as the Academic Coordinator at the Dance Program, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón & Escuela de Danza 21, the first of its kind on the island. Her work has been presented in PR, BXL, NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles. During her visiting fellowship at PLAS this summer, Nibia will be working on her essay Panorama Imposible: Baile, Resistencia y Explosión (Impossible Panorama: Dance, Resistance, and Explosion) as part of the first anthology on experimental dance to ever be published in Puerto Rico, and which she is co-editing with Susan Homar. Pastrana will be at PLAS from August 19 to September 1, 2018.