Danceworker
M. Gabriela Estrada
Female / She/Her/Hers
M. Gabriela Estrada is an interdisciplinary artist whose work interweaves research, education, and community engagement. She holds a B.A. and M.F.A. in Dance from the University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Flamenco Studies from the University of Seville. She has worked as a journalist, choreographer, filmmaker, and educator in the U.S. and abroad. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Houston, where she teaches Dance in Film, Dance History, ballet, and flamenco, and serves UH's KGMCA's global initiatives.
Estrada has collaborated with Ballet Hispánico of NY as Education Manager for its Community Arts Partnerships program and as faculty in its School of Dance. She founded Dance Collage School of Dance in Mexico and taught musical theatre in Spain. Her film training includes NALIP, Mexico's cinematography program (CCC), and Sundance Collab. She currently participates in Columbia University's Seminar Studies in Dance, filmmakers' AI Café led by Philip Shane.
Estrada is an active member of Columbia University Seminars in Dance History, the Dance Studies Association, the New York Women in Film and Television, Mexico's Associación de Mujeres en Cine y TV, and is NDEO's (National Dance Education Organization) Advisory Board Research Advisor.
Her creative work includes Reconstrucción, a theatre dance production based on her research into lost Humphrey–Limón repertoire; the screenplay False Premises; In Memoriam, a multidisciplinary tribute to Juilliard's faculty emeritus Héctor Zaraspe; Ni una Carmen más!, a short dance doc featured at Mexico's MCYTV XXI International Film Festival (2025); Resonancias Introspectivas, a cinédanse film, and collaborations in short fiction films such as Ghost Light directed by Mike Grossman.