Global Brandeis Profile: Celeste Radosevich, M.A. ’11

Celeste Radosevich, M.A. '11

Program: Master of Arts in Cultural Production

Year of Graduation: 2011

Hometown: Urbana-Champaign, Illinois

Previous Education: B.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology and M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Clubs/Organizations: Intern at Jose Mateo Ballet Theater in Cambridge, MA; Salsa y Control Dance Studio in Allston, MA

Awards: Jane’s Travel Grant

“We’re all positioned in different ways, and race, gender, sexuality, ability, and all of those things are very real things that we deal with on a day to day basis.”

Constantly following her passions – be it biology, dance, or Latin American studies – Celeste Radosevich seems to be living the interdisciplinary life that she loves. In addition to minoring in Latin American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she also majored in Molecular and Cellular Biology, and started a flourishing  biological society at the school while working in a lab for several years. When asked how she ended up at Brandeis studying Cultural Production, she laughs and says, “that’s everyone’s favorite question.” Her explanation was that while she certainly loves the subject, biology was not quite what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.  She made it clear that she has diverse interests, and that the Cultural Production program has enabled her to explore her multiple passions. Describing the Cultural Production program as being at the nexus of the arts, humanities,  the social sciences, and other disciplines , she commented “I really like interdisciplinary studies: you’re allowed to ask all sorts of questions that you can’t really explore in more traditional academic disciplines.”

Celeste has a strong background in Latin American Studies as well as previous travel experience to the region: she has visited Peru twice, once as a general visit and later on a Foreign Language and Area Studies scholarship from the University of Illinois to study Quechua (a language spoken by nearly ten million people in the Andes).  She also maintains a fervent interest in dance.  Her receipt of the Jane’s Travel Grant for Latin American Studies fit extremely well with her studies in the social sciences and performing arts, allowing her to combine these two passions.

Focusing on themes of indigenous peoples, tourism, and customs, she describes that salsa is happening as “kind of battling on the dance floor for  embodiments of ethnicity and gender, among other things.” She spent three weeks in the city, and describes it as being very diverse, and “a really interesting site, because the industry of Cuzco is tourism and that’s really what everybody does.  But if you know the history of the city it’s also known as the capital of the Incan world, and so is also embedded with meanings from centuries of traditions and practices that go beyond the economic value of tourist attractions.”

Celeste describes the project as being interested in “the salsa scene in Cusco, a dance phenomenon that promotes a completely different understanding of so-called ‘Latin’ ethnicities  while sort of rejecting what is going on locally in Peru.  Popular media often shows Latin dancing in a way that portrays a monolithic, sort of pan-Latin American sense of identity and ethnicity.  Because salsa and most so-called ‘Latin’ dances are from the Caribbean, they don’t always echo with the embodiments that are going on in Cuzco around dance.”

Her love for Latin American culture is apparent, and she says she would love to travel more around the region, there being so much more to see and do. While she has not chosen yet from several exciting opportunities for the future, each will be rich in cultural exploration and experience.

Celeste recently performed at the 2011 Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Arts.  Through her piece, “Me(ee)ting on the Dance Floor”, she “employ[ed] salsa dancing to explore the tension encountered by salsa musicians between their own dynamic identity and the identity projected onto them by others.”

You can find more information about her research and work experiences on her website: http://web.me.com/cradosevich/celeste/