Cinthia Durán
Cinthia Durán
WORK /02 / PEDAGOGY & FACILITATION
Facilitation built on three real pillars — somatic practice, social therapeutics, and Latin social dance as relational technology — where a classroom becomes a space to practice confidence, trust, and collective growth, not just technique.
Cinthia's teaching is grounded in an understanding of learning as both transformational and relational: development changes how a student sees and engages with the world, and creating the conditions for that growth is, at its core, a social practice.
In the classroom, she works from a social-therapeutic framework in which development can happen at any stage of life, given two things: an environment that supports growth, and a willingness to work just beyond one's current comfort zone — what developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky called "performing a head taller than who we are." With that in mind, she builds spaces where students can practice confidence, trust, and risk-taking through improvisation and play, treating "error" as part of the process rather than something to avoid.
Her pedagogy integrates three real practices: somatic training (certified through Responsive Body), Arts as Social Action and Latin social dance as a technology of relation (through intensives with CONTRA-TIEMPO and Primera Generación Dance Collective), and social therapeutics (a year of training through the East Side Institute's International Class). She sees her own role not as a provider of information, but as a facilitator of experiences, exchanges, and conversations through which knowledge is built together with her students.
At UC Riverside, Cinthia teaches Introduction to Dance and Dance Cultures & Contexts as theory-practice courses. Since beginning her PhD, she has treated the classroom itself as a creative laboratory — a space to ask what dance can offer someone who has never danced before, and what experiences are worth building toward.
Beyond the university, Cinthia teaches Salsa, Cumbia, and Rueda de Casino in museums, cultural centers, and community organizations across the Inland Empire — framing these dances not only as movement vocabularies to learn, but as living archives of cultural memory, encoded in call-and-response, circular arrangements, and partnerwork.
Through workshops like Movement Technologies, Cinthia uses somatic tools and Latin social dance to help participants practice confidence as a skill rather than a fixed trait — building real interpersonal capacity, creativity, and trust through the shared, embodied work of moving together.
University Pedagogy
This class delves into the practice of latin social dances through the frameworks of play, performance and improvisation. Participants will learn the histories and movement foundations of Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue and Bachata, and will be invited to embody them playfully and improvisationally, tapping into the community-making and joy-driven qualities of these dance forms. Understanding performance and improvisation as tools that enable us to play with who we are and who we are "becoming", this class invites participants to discover their own potential as dancers and tap into the movement resources already present in their bodies. Latin social dances, as technologies of social cohesion and collective resource-building and resource-sharing spaces, will be the practices framing and facilitating our improvisation and performance playground.
The frameworks through which we will embark on this journey are the following:
1. Play, performance and Improvisation, as an approach to understand dance as a tool for social change through individual and collective development.
2. Understanding dance as Ancestral Technology, of social cohesion and a practice that enables collective resource-building and resource-sharing.
3. The body as a site of political/historical contestation and cultural production.
University Pedagogy
This class delves into the practice of social dances, movement improvisation and somatic practices as technologies of relationality, collective well being and as embodied resources for social justice. Our weekly gatherings are meant to be a resource-building, resource-sharing space to practice in real time all these technologies and build new ways of relating to our own bodies, map our interconnectedness and interdependence on one another, and build new ways of intentionally sharing space and being with one another. This class is meant to be a developmental zone where all participants can create tools and strategies to recognize themselves as agentic subjects with the capacity of responding to the pressing issues of their environments and contexts. The invitation of this class is to do so through the recognition and activation of the generous resource of moving together and reorienting our intentions and focus from an individualistic framework towards a collectivization of efforts, processes and experiences.
Personal & Community Development
Welcome to the Movement Technologies workshop! This is much more than a dance class or a personal development workshop — this is a space to practice community using somatic tools and social dance in order to co-create our growth.
Together we will:
– Experience confidence as a practice, not a quality that you either have or don't.
– Reclaim our creativity as a resource for personal growth and community development.
– Embrace discomfort as growth through play and improvisation.
– Develop meaningful interpersonal skills by experiencing social dance as a laboratory for relationality.
“Cinthia's Movement Technologies course was much more than a dance class for me.
Cinthia's Movement Technologies course was much more than a dance class for me. In Movement Technologies I learned movement patterns that have reduced the physical pain in my body; I learned tools rooted in educational philosophy on how to have fun doing something I am uncomfortable and unfamiliar with; and most importantly, I learned practical principles on how to connect with strangers to build relationships and then a community.
Alex McDonald Environmental Science Postdoc, UC Riverside
“Having attended several of Cinthia's Rueda de Casino classes, I have been consistently impressed by her…
Having attended several of Cinthia's Rueda de Casino classes, I have been consistently impressed by her ability to help people break out of their shells and simply enjoy moving to the music. She also has a remarkable talent for recognizing the needs of the class and adapting her lessons on the fly with creative solutions. Her adaptability, clear instruction, and deep understanding of the dance make her an exceptional instructor.
Nafis Mustakin Niloy Computer Science PhD Candidate, UC Riverside
“Cinthia leads people into the exercises in a tolerant and encouraging way, not overloading with info, and quickly it all comes together.
Cinthia leads people into the exercises in a tolerant and encouraging way, not overloading with info, and quickly it all comes together. They were memorable enough that I can still do some of the movements I learned in those classes, even a year later. Cinthia has a knack for feeling the various energies in a group and facilitating a social atmosphere that adapts fluidly, and that I think is one unique talent that stands out about her.
Tyler Cohen Sociology PhD Candidate, UC Riverside
“Cinthia's ability to relate to and to connect with her workshop audience was phenomenal!
Cinthia's ability to relate to and to connect with her workshop audience was phenomenal! She captured the attention of adults as well as high school students during her session with such charisma that they did not want the dance session with Cinthia to end. I was inspired by Cinthia's fluidity with all of us in English and in Spanish and with her ability to lend herself to others to fully and thoroughly enjoy music and movement as a form of expression and a means to connect with each other.
Alejandra de la Torre Family Engagement Program Manager, Colton Joint Unified School District
Social therapeutics & performance-activism training (full scholarship)
View certificate →Biodynamic somatic-practice certification
View certificate →Movement workshop for newly-enrolled high school students, Bloomington High School
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