The Ohio State University Department of Dance welcomes Cyrah L. Ward (pronounced seer-ah) (she/they) to our faculty in autumn 2025 as an assistant professor of practice. Ward is a scholar of Black dance aesthetics, a critical race theorist, and a conjurer of ritual-based visual and performance art. Her interdisciplinary research seeks innovative ways to privilege the Black Gaze through an ethnographic approach to staging the mundane. Ward’s work draws from Black oral traditions, digital archives, and lived experience to create character-driven, embodied performances that honor ancestral knowledge and contemporary realities.
Deeply rooted in the storytelling tradition, Ward’s work rests at the crossroads of sacred ritual, sociopolitical critique, and expressions of Black joy. Her most notable collaboration, “Hoofer’s Memory Lab,” was performed at the New York City Center with tap dancers Brinae Ali and Gerson Lanza. The New York Times described the performance as “reminiscent of baptismal ritual,” a reflection of her ongoing commitment to staging the mundane and creating ritual-based art.
Ward values using dance as a tool for building and gathering community. In doing so, she has performed with the world-renowned Urban Bush Women and collaborated with many community arts organizers, including Cheri Stokes, Nia-Amina Minor, MK Abadoo of MK Arts, and dani tirrell of The Congregation. During her tenure as Assistant Professor of Africanist Practice at San Francisco State University, she publicly presented a new work, “Wishin N’ Washin”, commissioned by Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, which led to her being named a CA$H Dance grant recipient. She was also accepted into the 2025/2026 Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency and the 2025 Jacob’s Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship.
Ward holds a BFA with distinction in Dance from The Ohio State University and an MFA in Dance from the University of Maryland.
"I am thrilled to begin my role as assistant professor of practice at The Ohio State University," says Ward. "I am excited to show students that in higher education grace and rigor can go hand in hand. I also look forward to bringing my authentic self to this role and to collectively exploring what it means to remain fully human during times such as these. With a career shaped by many creative paths, my hope is to help students see themselves as architects of their own careers and understand that success is not defined by a single model. Most of all, I am eager to build mentoring relationships with students and to pay forward the support that was generously offered to me during my own undergraduate journey at The Ohio State University."