This year, Associate Dance Professor Merián Soto was awarded a Pew Fellowship from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in Philadelphia. The Center has provided local artists, scholars and cultural organizations with 9.6 millions dollars worth of grants in 2015. Professor Soto was recognized by the Center for her 40-year career studying dance and performance through somatic investigations and process-oriented practices. Soto claims that she is continually working towards, “a dance of the future, a dance of healing, transformation, and transcendence.”

The Center has funded many of Soto’s creative and conceptual works, such as Branch Dance Series, SoMoS, and Wissahicken Park research project.

From studying Latino dance in New York to modern day creative explorations in Philadelphia,Merián Soto has built a name for herself and continues to inspire her students, young artists, and audiences of multiple dance and art backgrounds.

-Meghan McFerran

B.F.A. Dance

B.A. Journalism