Russ Patrick Alcedo (Dance) is one of four York professors to be awarded an Ontario Early Researcher Awards valued at $140,000.

The Early Researcher Awards program helps recently appointed researchers make new discoveries while creating jobs for graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research assistants.

Dr. Alcedo investigates the pivotal role that Philippine folk dance plays in the formation of Filipino identity in the Canadian diaspora. His research project, titled “An Empire Dances Back: Nationalism, Post-coloniality and the Canadian Diaspora through Philippine Folk Dance Traditions,” will look at the Filipino immigrant experience into Canada by way of this expressive cultural form. Ethnographic research among Philippine folk dance companies, multimedia projects and folk dance workshops will be produced. His project can help guide dance curriculum development, art funding policies and multicultural projects that aim for cultural exchange and complex representations of world dance traditions within the province and beyond.

The story about York recipients is available here: http://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2014/07/30/four-york-profs-receive-ontario-early-researcher-awards/