D'onminique Boyd Riley

Having contributed to the field of dance in varying roles as a performer, student, educator, healer, community member, arts administrator, programmer, and dance writer, D’onminique Boyd Riley has a well rounded perspective of the arts. D’onminique’s dance artistry involves the exploration of family and ancestral wisdom, the relationship between imagination and migration, and the delight in leisure.

In 2008 she began work as a dance facilitator at El Puente Academy of Peace and Justice where she learned the power of using the arts as a tool for community activism. In 2016, she was awarded the Legacy Continues award by the Katherine Dunham Museum, worked internationally studying traditional South African dances as a Baldwin Artist in Residence, and locally she has worked with students on the Autism Spectrum as an Adaptive Dance Assistant at the former Lou Conte Dance Studio in Chicago.

Currently, D’onminique lives on Chicago’s South Side where she works in an ecosystem of teachers, artists, families, and students as the Assistant Director of Education and Family Programs at the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. She is a 2021 3Arts Make a Wave grant recipient and a 2022 Performance Curator for TEDxChicago. She looks forward to creating her first documentary which explores the history of her father’s journey of steppin’ in Chicago, slated to premiere in the Fall of 2022.