DEARBORN — Meiver De La Cruz’s connection with Arabic dance began with a bump in an elevator. Coin belts fell out of the bag of the woman she ran into, which led to a conversation about belly dancing and De La Cruz’s first lesson on the folk dance. 

“The aesthetics of movement capture my imagination,” De La Cruz said. “And I think maybe through Africa I found a connection to Arabic rhythms and music that became addictive. 

De La Cruz’s infatuation with the movements and meanings of Arabic performance art is the basis of her current research as a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. 

For more than three years, De La Cruz has focused on performers in Chicago and Dearborn. Their experiences span from the late 1960s to the present. 

She is interested in documenting and investigating changes in performance traditions that arrived in the area with different waves of migration. Understanding interconnections among performers, the shifting tastes of local communities and political and economic factors that shape performances are also among her goals. 

“The performance actually tells a broader story about a community’s history in the way that people present themselves, in the way that artists engage new community members as the community changes,” she said. 

De La Cruz will be conducting research in Dearborn until mid-November and welcomes comments from anyone who has something to say about performance in the community. 

“I am interested in talking to community performers, social dancers, whoever wants to talk to me, really,” she said. 

To share information with Meiver De La Cruz, email her at:

meiver@u.northwestern.edu.