Vania Bynum

Vania Clemons Bynum is a former computer engineer who utilizes the ingenuity of making software to create dance. A graduate of Cornish College of the Arts, Vania has taught and choreographed throughout the Greater Seattle area. She has performed in the Paramount & Moore Theaters, Intiman Theatre, Benaroya Hall, the Meydenbauer and more. Utilizing dance as her form of worship, Vania directed the Adult Liturgical Dance Ministry at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship for 11 years. She also performed in The Black Nativity, Hip-Hop Back to Its Roots!, Dance This!, 7 Women 7 Stools, and American Jazz Nutcracker. Vania’s works have been supported by the City of Seattle, 4Culture, Central District Forum, Bossak Heilbron, Microsoft, and the Allied Arts Foundation. In 2018, Vania created a new work in progress, Dancing Our Truth, for CD Forum’s Showing Out: Contemporary Black Choreographers. She is performing in A Special Evening with Stephanie Mills and Friends 2019 concert and will present Excerpts from the Soul of a Woman – “QUEENS IN THE MILITARY” in 2020.

Vania received 2019 GAP Award funding for “QUEENS IN THE MILITARY“, the third installment of her multidisciplinary dance series, Excerpts from the Soul of a Woman. The military is traditionally a space for men only and was rarely seen as a place for women, especially women of color. “QUEENS IN THE MILITARY” will shed light on women in the military, their struggle for equal opportunity, challenges faced as veterans, and acknowledgement of their contributions.