
- gjun@ucsd.edu
- (858) 534-3791
- (858) 534-1080
-
9500 Gilman Dr
Mail Code: 0344
La Jolla , California 92093
Continuing Lecturer in Dance
Dr. grace shinhae jun is a mother, wife, artist, scholar, organizer, and mover who creates and educates on the traditional and unceded territory of the Kumeyaay Nation. A child of a South Korean immigrant, a North Korean refugee, and Hip Hop culture, she values a movement practice that is infused with historical and contextual education to enrich the corporeal experience in her classes. Her work as an educator and artist is influenced by choreographers Rennie Harris, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence and Doug Elkins, and critical scholars Dr. Nadine George-Graves, Dr. Brenda Dixon Gottschild, Dr. Imani Kai Johnson, Dr. George Lipsitz, and her husband Dr. Jesse Mills.
grace also directs bkSOUL, an award-winning performance company that merges together movement, poetry, and live music. As a collective, they create and conspire as educators, artists, storytellers, and organizers who directly challenge the systems of violence and oppression steeped in anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity. She has presented her work in Trolley Dances, WOW Festival, Live Arts Festival, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Dumbo Arts Festival, San Diego International Fringe Festival, and at Link’s Hall. grace has also choreographed for numerous staged plays, most notably for Will Power's "The Seven" at Occidental College. She is a founding core member of Asian Solidarity Collective, a grassroots organization committed to expanding Asian American social justice consciousness, condemning anti-Blackness, and building solidarity for collective liberation and co-conspires with the artists and healers of Street Dance Activism.
* "Asian American Liminality: Racial Triangulation in Hip Hop Dance" in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies
* "Illegible Representations, Collaborative Protests" co-authored with Anthony Blacksher in the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Journal Vol. 13 No. 2 (2023): Dance & Protest
* The Cyber-Rock Mixtape: A virtual hip hop dance listening cypher. Co-edited with MiRi Park for Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies. Volume 41 (2022).
Hip Hop, Dance, Performance, Asian American Studies
Wagner Dance Building