Raven Malouf-Renning is a queer, disabled, nonbinary, neurodivergent, fat dancer, choreographer, and musician based in New York City. They received their BA in 1997 and a Graduate Certificate in 1998 in Theater Arts (Dance) from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and their MA in Performance Studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts in 2025.

Prior to arriving in New York, they were the Associate Director of the Wandering Ensemble, a mixed ability dance/theater group based in Hayward, CA, as well as a Lead Artist at SAFEHouse for the Performing Arts in San Francisco. Their primary area of research lives at the crossroads of dance, disability, dysregulation, neurodiversity, thermodynamics, and creative rest. They recently performed at the New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival in the premiere of Cadaver Dog, a new work by Christopher Unpezverde Núñez.

Raven is currently part of the Fall/Winter cohort of the New Dance Alliance LiftOff Residency, where they are developing their new work-in-progress, The Crip Tarot Dances. Creating raw, honest, inclusive art and empowering others to do the same is at the heart of their artistic and spiritual practice, and is a driving and animating force for their scholarly research.

Why PS @ NYU? 

The Department of Performance Studies feels like it was tailor made for people like me! Artistically, my work encompasses multiple media: dance, theater, writing, music, and more! I have an insatiable curiosity about the world around me and consider myself a compulsive researcher, and I deeply look forward to bolstering years of practice based inquiry with a healthy helping of praxis.