Ilya Vidrin

Dr. Ilya Vidrin is a choreographer, researcher, and educator situated at the nexus of performing arts, ethics, and interactive media. Born into a Soviet-refugee family in the United States, Ilya grew up navigating the nuances of cultural expectations, language barriers, and diverging political ideologies. This experience of code-switching fuels Ilya's research and artistic practice to examine social ethics in physical interaction, including intimate labors of care, cultural competence, and social responsibility. Based in Boston, Ilya is Assistant Professor of Creative Practice Research, Affiliate Faculty in the Institute for Experiential Robotics and Institute for Experiential A.I., and director of the Partnering Lab, an interdisciplinary research platform for investigating embodied ethics in and through shared movement. Ilya was a Spring 2024 visiting scholar at the Davis Center.