2026
Davis, Thaddeus, Tanya Wideman-Davis, and Dahlia Nayar-Butler. “Choreographers in the Commons Sipping Coffee: A Radio Show.” Essay. Oxford Handbook on Black Dance Studies, Ed. Dr. Thomas DeFrantz. Oxford University Press, 2025.


2025
Nayar-Butler, Dahlia. Performing the Quiet: Minoritarian Gestures, Withholdings, and Refusals, Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2025.


2023
Nayar-Butler, Dahlia. Choreography for Lola, March 2021, Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies 42, no. 0 (2023).

***Photo of Dahlia, Tanya and Thaddeus by M. Reid Wideman Davis Dance.

*Maraming” multimedia installation of sound, film, fabric, and durarional performance in response to Long Kwento a solo exhibit by Maia Cruz Palileo.

December 3 & 4, 2021
San Francisco, CA
Wattis Institute

April 22, 2022
Park City, Utah
Kimball Arts Center

Uh Oh Trio is a collaborative project between Loren Kiyoshi Dempster, Margaret Sunghe Paek, and Dahlia Nayar.

2017- 2019 Dahlia was one of 6 choreographers from across the country invited to tour the state of Alabama over multiple residences, dozens of performances, and community engagement. This two year project was organized by the Alabama Dance Council as part of the state’s bicentennial and envisioned to engage audiences in conversation about immigration, dislocation, the meaning of place and home. We toured to schools, colleges, festivals, nursing homes, galleries, and had the honor of being guests at the Porch Creek Reservation.

2017 from
Pictured: omposer/musicial Loren Kiyoshi Dempster constructs and experiments with a barbed wire cello. Uh Oh Trio continues its multimedia investigations into deeply personal histories of belonging and non-belonging. Research site: Topaz Internment Camp and Topaz Museum, Delta, UT. Click here for 360 VR sound experiments. Site adaptive performance/media installation.

2125 Stanley Street is a performance installation exploring notions of home. The work toured and adapted to venues throughout the States between 2013-2017, winning multiple awards including the National Dance Project Touring Award. Adaptable as a live performance, a durational performance and a gallery installation, the work toured from stages, to grange halls, to galleries, to museums, to alleys, and more.

The project examines “home” as an archaeological site where minimal artifacts offer points of departure for the re-imagination and reconstruction a domestic space. We excavate the everyday and the mundane in search of a poetic consciousness of the immigrant experience. Household objects transform into potential sources of revelation and reflection. Basic tasks are infused with virtuosity and nostalgia. Fragmented lullabies and nursery rhymes create an evocative soundscape. Ultimately, the installation aims to invite the audience into a home that unfolds through movement and sound, a home that exists in the present moment through intimate exchange, a home that is is both familiar and yet cannot exactly be located.