Vera Djemelinskaia (Moldova) is a musical theatre dance educator, choreographer, and communication strategist working at the intersection of embodied cognition and sociopolitical transformation. She has extensive experience in complex citizen, policy, and science communication campaigns for international organisations, such as the European Commission, IEA, and UN-system agencies. Through her community art projects, Vera works with adults without prior music or movement training, facilitating embodied sense-making and helping participants imagine alternative, pro-social normative realities through sound-performative practice. In her doctoral project at the Department of Music and Movement Education/Rhythmics, she investigates how participatory choreomusicking interventions centred on semantically enriched musical movement can influence collective perceptions of social justice - deconstructing systems of oppression ‘one shimmy at a time’. Vera holds a BA in Journalism and Communication from Moldova State University, and, as a DAAD alumna, an MA in European Studies from the University of Leipzig - both completed with honours.
 

https://www.veradje.com/ 
vera.djemelinskaia@students.mdw.ac.at

 

Sound-to-motion translations and normative learning in musical theatre dance experience

This doctoral project proposes choreomusicking as a conceptual framework to investigate how embodied sound-to-motion translations can foster (un)learning and challenge systems of oppression. Rooted in enactivism, participatory art, and queer theory, the project explores how semantically enriched musical movement may queer perceptions that uphold dominant Western binaries - human/nonhuman, subject/object, performer/audience, knowing/not-knowing, nature/culture, individual/collective. Grounded in critical and performative ethnography, the research unfolds in two strands: (1) an analysis of participatory/immersive choreomusicking performances that aim to engage audiences in political sense-making at a collective level; and (2) experimental community art initiatives for adults without professional dance/music training, such as Feminist Dance Workshops and Fearleaders, which activate civic imagination through choreomusicking practice. Ultimately, the project aims to contribute to music and movement education by advancing choreomusicking as both an artistic and didactic method for social transformation.