Ava LaVonne Vinesett began a professional dance career
as one of the founding members of the Chuck Davis African-American Dance Ensemble. Vinesett attended UNC-G as a Patricia Roberts Harris fellow receiving her MFA in Dance (John Gamble advisor) in 1998. In 2009, the UNC-G School of Health and Human Performance presented Vinesett with the Ethel Martus Lawther Alumni award. Vinesett is a performance scholar, Full Professor of the Practice in Dance at Duke University; former Director of Undergraduate Studies/Dance, Faculty Director/Alice M. Baldwin Scholars/Duke University. She is a founding member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD), and with Almy-Pagán, Vinesett is the co-founder of
Indigo Yard Gals https://indigoyardgals.weebly.com, and a prolific choreographer rooting her work in the aesthetic, technical, ceremonial, spiritual, and sacred tenets layering traditional African and African-derived dance forms. Coining the term “dance translator” to address her process of examining her personal voice in dance, Vinesett creates works which navigate the interplay of gender, ritual, and performance, desiring to transform spaces into points of contact between the world of what is seen and unseen worlds
