Hiie Saumaa

Adjunct Faculty

Dancer, teacher, and author.

Education
Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York City, 2014. Dissertation: “Meditative Modernism: Tuning the Mind in British Literature, 1890-1940.” Sarah Cole, Brent Hayes Edwards, Marianne Hirsch (committee); M.A. in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia, 2008. Coursework toward Ph.D. in English, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2005-07. Phi Kappa Phi.; M.Ed. in English Education, Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi, 2005. Lambda Iota Tau. M.A. and B.A. in English Language and Literature, University of Tartu, Estonia, 2005, 2003. Diploma cum laude. Certifications in dance and movement education (Nia, BodyLogos, JourneyDance, Pilates, Nutrition, Group Exercise), 2005-15; Diploma in music: major in flute, minor in orchestral conducting. Heino Eller Music School, Tartu, Estonia, 2001.

Publications
Annie Payson Call’s Training in Release and Somatic Imagination, Dance Research Journal; Alys Bentley’s Dance Impulse, Embodied Learning, and the Dancing Mind, Dance Chronicle; Margaret Fisk Taylor’s Sacred Dance, Moving Imagination, and Kinesthetic Empathy, Journal of Dance, Movement & Spiritualities.

Teaching
Columbia University, New York; New York University, New York; New York University School for Professional Studies, New York; “Nia dance.” Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and Institute for Ideas & Imagination, Paris. 2018-current.

Professional Experience
Inaugural fellow at Columbia Institute for Ideas & Imagination in Paris, France; Dance Division, Fellow at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York; Artist/Scholar in Residence at Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France.