Meredith Cabaniss is a multi-creative artist and dance scholar. She graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a B.F.A. in Dance. During her studies she received a University Research Grant for her departmental Honor’s Project, the Corwin Award for choreography, and other departmental honors. Ms. Cabaniss also traveled in Tel Aviv, Israel, to study with Batsheva Dance Company as a recipient of the Patricia Sparrow scholarship for summer study. Ms. Cabaniss received her M.F.A. in dance at Hollins University in collaboration with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, The Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, and The Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (formerly the Forsythe Company). 

As the founder and artistic director of Selah Dance Collective, Ms. Cabaniss has produced full evening-length performances and presented works throughout the United States and abroad in Leyte, Philippines. Her work has been performed most recently in Estonia, Norway, Finland, and Italy. She recently co-produced a collaborative, multimedia evening-length work at the historic Lobero Theater as a featured artist for Nebula Dance Lab. Ms. Cabaniss is on faculty at various dance studios and companies throughout the Santa Barbara area, including the training program at State Street Ballet, while traveling nationally and internationally as a choreographer and educator. 

Meredith’s research concerns the historiography of the body in early dance modernism with an emphasis on the interwar period, the politics of the female body, and portrayals of death onstage in modern dance performances. Her current work on Le Sacre du Printemps by Vaslav Nijinksy included the creation of a contemporary adaptation of the ballet at UC Santa Barbara in April 2022 with more than 30 professional and pre-professional dancers from Southern California.