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Artists

Thaddeus Davis and Tanya Wideman-Davis (Wideman Davis Dance)

Thaddeus Davis: He // Him // His
Tanya Wideman-Davis: She // Her // Hers

Transdisciplinary Dancers and Choreographers

Columbia, South Carolina

A poignant moment between two individuals engaged in a dance. Both are dressed in dark, elegant clothing — one in a black buttoned shirt and navy pants, the other in a flowing black dress with a cinched waist. Their outfits contribute to a sense of formality and intensity. The introspective expressions and fluid, purposeful body language hints at an emotional dialogue conveyed through movement. 

Photo by Thomas Brenner.

Through lived experience and cultural traditions of Southern Black communities, we advance dance as both an intellectual and social practice.”
Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis are dance artists whose professional practice encompasses choreography, filmmaking, production, site-specific performance, community organizing, and education. They founded Wideman Davis Dance in 2003 to engage with communities through conversation and reflection on shared humanity and liberation. Wideman-Davis’s research, pedagogy, and artistic methodologies explore race, identity, location, and Black visual culture to ground her views on performance and making. Davis’s research, performance, and community practices focus on Southern Black experiences, critically examining how space and environment influence interactions related to gender, class, race, technology, and media. Their collaboration has been recognized with several honors and grants, including support from the Ford Foundation, Alternate Roots Organizational Wellness, the Mellon Monuments Project, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International Association of Blacks in Dance: COHI | MOVE, the New England Foundation for the Arts: National Dance Project, and the MAP Fund. Both serve as Associate Professors in the Department of African American Studies at the University of South Carolina.

Donor -This award was generously supported by Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts.

This artist page was last updated on: 01.14.2026

a woman in profile in three panels of color.

Church by Wideman Davis Dance.

dancers in an outdoor area move around the frame of a house made of pvc pipe.

Peter Datcher by Wideman Davis Dance.

On a dance stage that looks like a house interior, a seated woman grasps hands with a standing man across a table. A woman looks on from the corner.

Migratuse by Wideman Davis Dance.