S. Ama Wray
S. Ama Wray is a choreographer, teacher, researcher, writer, director, performer, and inventor. A TEDx speaker, she has presented her work at the United Nations, Princeton, Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Studies, and Dance USA. She has taught dance at renowned institutions including the Martha Graham School, The Royal Ballet, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Her formation as a dance artist began with London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Rambert Dance Company. For over 30 years, dance has remained a joyful core of her being. Her collaborations span dance, theatre, and music, including work with Wynton Marsalis, Mojisola Adebayo, Bobby McFerrin, Nicole Mitchell, and Jane Dudley—whose seminal work Harmonica Breakdown (1938) Wray now serves as custodian. Awarded a PhD in Dance Studies from the University of Surrey, her academic journey led her to Ghana to study expressive performance practices. She is the creator and custodian of Embodiology®, an award-winning improvisational methodology rooted in African knowledge systems and embodied systems thinking. In theatre, Wray co-directed Stars: An Afrofuturist Space Odyssey, which won a British Offie Award for Best New Play. Her work bridges stage performance and community cohesion, integrating healing arts to counterbalance the growing technocracy that threatens our social fabric. Her writings on Embodiology® appear in The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation and British Dance, Black Routes (Routledge). Her forthcoming monograph, Embodiology®: From Ancestral Movement and Music Practices to Phenomenal Being, deepens this exploration. She continues to teach across diverse learning communities—from non-dancers to artists and medical professionals—sharing tools for embodied wellness and creative expression. A first clinical study on Embodiology’s effects was funded by the Susan Samueli Institute of Integrative Health. Recently, she returned to the virtual stage with The Legion of Kinaesonic Healers, advancing an arts-social pharmacy to support community medicine and public health. Currently in development is MOVE (Movement and Music Optimize Vitality), a research lab examining urban, indigenous, and ancestral practices of dance and music to integrate them into health systems—especially by creating pathways for traditional practitioners to shape research agendas. In education, Wray has designed Embodiology® professional development programs for New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District, offering teacher wellness tools and improvisation strategies to enhance student learning outcomes. As a National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts Fellow, she pioneered Texterritory, a mobile phone-based interactive storytelling performance. Her innovations continue through AI 4 Afrika, an initiative she co-founded with scholars, choreographers, data scientists, and entrepreneurs to explore the intersection of African knowledge systems and emerging technologies.