The Fulbright Association has recognized Professor Patrick Alcedo with a prestigious Selma Jeanne Cohen Award for Dance and Dance Studies.
The Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund for International Scholarship on Dance honours the pioneering and seminal contributions of preeminent dance historian Selma Jeanne Cohen.
A professor in the Department of Dance, Faculty of Fine Arts, and director of its MA and PhD programs, Faculty of Graduate Studies, Alcedo will present a lecture as part of the Fulbright Association 37th Annual Conference, to be held in Washington, DC in October 2014 on the theme, “Dare to Create.” Titled “An Empire Stages Back: Colonialism, Postcoloniality, and the Diaspora in Philippine Dance,” his presentation is part of the Early Researcher Award of the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation that he also won this year.
The Fulbright Association’s annual conference is an important multidisciplinary forum whose participants are prominent Fulbright alumni, public officials, and representatives of the higher education and foreign affairs communities.
Alcedo is a specialist in Philippine dance. His research explores the intimate but paradoxical relationship between folk festival production and notions of cultural authenticity: the attempt to preserve traditional, communal expressions of cultural heritage that must simultaneously negotiate and adapt to the forces of modernity.