ABOUT

Dunya Dianne McPherson is a critically acclaimed dancer, choreographer, performing and visual artist, writer, and educator whose work spans concert dance, interdisciplinary performance, music, writing, and visual art. Her career has been distinguished by a dynamic approach to movement and performance and by a sustained interest in the expressive and transformative potential of the body.

A graduate of The Juilliard School with a BFA in Dance, Dunya has performed and choreographed internationally in concert venues, theaters, and nightclubs. Her work as a dancer has been recognized by The New York Times and The Village Voice, while her choreography has been featured and praised in The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Dance Magazine. Her artistic work has received numerous grants and honors, including a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Choreography Fellowship, recognizing her contribution to the development of contemporary dance during a period of significant innovation and expansion in the field.

A pivotal influence on Dunya’s artistic development was her encounter with Butoh, particularly the work of Japanese master Kazuo Ohno. Butoh offered a radical shift in how she understood movement: away from movement as something the dancer produces and toward movement as a process of listening, discovery, and revelation. It opened a landscape within the body—one shaped by memory, sensation, imagination, presence, and the unknown. What began as an artistic investigation gradually became something more encompassing. Her study of Sufism and mystical consciousnessemerged alongside this inquiry, not as a departure from her artistic life but as another dimension of the same search. The inner training of mysticism and the inner training of the artist became deeply connected: both asked her to enter more fully into the experience of being, perception, and movement, and both became ways of investigating consciousness through the body.

This inquiry eventually led to the creation of Dancemeditation™, a movement-based practice that brings together her background as a professional dancer and choreographer with her exploration of attention, consciousness, and embodied experience. Her creative practice continues to move across performance, choreography, visual art, writing, and music, with embodiment as a central thread.

She holds an MA in Writing from Lesley University and a Teaching Certification from the Sufi Foundation of America. She is the author of Sojourn the Inner Heaven: Movement Meditations for Awakening, a guide and companion for embodied practice,

and Skin of Glass: Finding Spirit in the Flesh, a memoir chronicling her journey into embodied mysticism. She is also a Lineage Holder in Sufism. Her contemplative training remains an integral part of her life and artistic inquiry, informing rather than defining the work.

As an educator, Dunya has taught, choreographed, and served in leadership roles at institutions including Barnard College, Princeton University, Swarthmore College, NYU, Hunter College, Oberlin College, and the Victorian College of the Arts in Australia. She has also presented her work at meditation centers, conferences, and international gatherings including the Netherlands Mystic Festival, SAT Institute, The Embodiment Conference, and Kripalu Center.

Today, Dunya continues to work as a performing and creative artist, developing projects that bring together movement, performance, visual art, writing, and contemplative inquiry.

FOUNDER, DANCEMEDITATION

DANCER

CHOREOGRAPHER

VISUAL ARTIST