Biography
Lila Ann M. Wong (née Dodge) is a dance artist, organizer, and PhD candidate in Anthropology (sociocultural and linguistic) pursuing minors in Gender Relations in International Development (GRID), Global Studies (CGS), Gender and Women's Studies, and Dance at UIUC. Her dissertation research studies the political economy of cultural development in Burkina Faso, Burkinabè women’s efforts to build professional careers in the performing arts, and differential mobilizations of notions of “culture” and “value” among variously positioned stakeholders in the country and region. Lila co-organizes the cultural arts education project “Éducation Autour de la Culture” with storyteller, marionettist and cultural administrator Hamadou Traoré at a public elementary school in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso.
Research Interests
Development, culture, and self-determination in postcolonial contexts; gender, labor, and social action; race, class, and transnational arts markets; political economy, bilateral and multilateral cooperation; Burkina Faso, the Sahel, West Africa; semiotics, discourse, and anthropological linguistics; value--monetary and cultural; dance, embodiment, and expression...
Education
PhD candidate, Anthropology (sociocultural & linguistic), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
MA, African Studies, Yale University
BA, Dance & American Studies, Smith College
GED, Dance, Idyllwild Arts Academy