BIO:

Dance scholar choreographer/performer, cultural editor, and visual artist, Dr. Roxy Régine Theobald is also a Creative Somatic Educator (in body memory & regulation) and creator of the 'inner lines' method. She serves as a contemporary dance lecturer and somatic instructor across BA, MA and PhD programs at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance , University of Limerick. Dr. Theobald is graduated in linguistics and holds a first-class honours Master 2 in Aesthetic Sciences and Technology of Arts, combining dance and theatre (France). Her Master's thesis, "Altérité et Aliénation en Danse Contemporaine" (Otherness and Alienation in Contemporary Dance), has been recognized as a significant contribution to scholarship on contemporary dance in France and is available at the library of the National Dance Centre (CND-Pantin). Her dance education includes Ailey School (New York), Goube European Dance Center, Studio Elsa Wolliaston (Paris). She trained under Joan and Penny Godboldo (Dunham Technique), Zofia Kalinska (Physical Theatre), Larrio Ekson, Peter Goss (contemporary dance), Christopher L. Huggins, Hope Boykin (Modern jazz dance), Wayne Byars (Ballet), and Marie-Claude Pietragalla (Contemporary Ballet). As an interdisciplinary research-practitioner, her areas of interest lie in phenomenology, aesthetics, and cultural borders, focusing on self-reflexive processes across dance, theatre, poetry, and mixed media practices. Through her doctoral research, she developed the concept of "inner lines "a creative ethnographic method through which she illuminates an innovative approach to Francophone African genealogies, body memory trauma, and interculturality through dance ethnography. In the context of this research, she collaborated with former Ailey Company dancer Olivia Bowman-Jackson and acclaimed composer-musician Niwell Tsumbu. Roxy is a 2022 recipient of the Irish Research Government of Ireland award.

As an inner alignment facilitator, she offers a distinctive, creative mental health model for anyone seeking, self-release, balance and growth development.

As a visual artist, her artwork "Undulating Body" has been exhibited at The Dorothy's Gallery in Paris (2015). Her dance film "Inner/Lines... Empowering Embodied Ancestral Voices" was cited in Dance Magazine New York (2024). As a reviewer, she has published for Africultures, Dance Light Magazine, Paris-Art.com, and Pratiques Corporelles, focusing on dance history, aesthetics, and social and cultural aspects of identity issues. As dance scholar, Roxy has attended international academic conferences and lectured on research-to-performance at various venues, including Musée de l’Homme, Cité de l’Immigration, Centre National de la Danse, and Université Toulouse II-Jean Jaurès (France, 7-2011); Dora Stratou Dance Theatre for UNESCO (Greece, 2006); Department of Ethnic Studies and English Literature at Colorado College (2011-2023); and Collegium for African Diaspora-CADD (2022-24) hosted at Duke University. These experiences, which have deepened her knowledge of African American culture, the French Africana Diaspora, Black Dance Aesthetics, and Physical Theatre, have provided her with opportunities to contribute to the field of Dance Studies.

Dr. Theobald expands her ‘inner lines’ research framework beyond the Afrodiasporic cultural context, offering it as a creative, holistic program. 

In France, she shared her expertise in French media (2007, 2008, 2018). In her earlier career, Roxy was a guest researcher at Indiana University-Bloomington where she worked under the supervision of the renowned anthropologist of dance Anya Peterson Royce to conduct postgraduate ethnographic research on the rhetoric of identity in African American aesthetics and dance performance. During her research residency in New York (2008), she met and interviewed dance pioneers such as Merce Cunningham, Gus Solomons Jr., and Bill T. Jones. She taught and held an artistic residency at Dance Limerick (Ireland) in 2021. Over the Spring quarter of 2023, Roxy was an International Artist-in-Residence at SLIPPAGE-Lab (Evanston, Northwestern University), directed by distinguished Professor Thomas F. DeFrantz. She collaborated with actor and composer-musician Mark P. O'Connor in the award-winning film Conversation (August 2024), cited in Dance Magazine New-York.In 2025, she choreographed and performed A Bird (official video) for singer -songwriter Jenny Raïsänen. As a national advisory panel member for the Dance State Diploma in France, Roxy's accomplishments in dance research have gained recognition from the Paris Ministry of Culture. Elected in 2022, she also served on the Board of Directors of Dance Limerick.