About

Originally from San Diego, Zaquia Mahler Salinas is a dance artist invested in movement-art as an act of reclamation and world-building. Her work often joins contemporary dance, text, and video, connecting audiences to visceral, intimate, and introspective narratives. She shape-shifts as a performer, choreographer, educator, curator, administrator, producer, and organizer. Zaquia has had the privilege of creating and sharing dances in digital and performance formats in the United States and abroad. She has participated in several artist and teaching residency programs, including in Chincha Alta, Peru and Bethlehem, Palestine. After nearly a decade of dancing professionally in San Diego, Zaquia co-founded DISCO RIOT (est. 2018), a nonprofit movement-arts organization that works to support independent movement-based artists. In 2023, Zaquia was a recipient of San Diego’s inaugural Far South/Border North award for artists working in socially engaged practice; she is currently serving as Resident Curator with ODC Theater in San Francisco. Outside of dance, you can find Zaquia teaching yoga – she is a 500 hour E-RYT certified yoga instructor.