biography
Dr. RAS Mikey C (Michael Courtney) is a critically acclaimed dance professional whose life mission is to spread universal understanding to communities and cultures across the globe by sharing his gift of the expressive arts. Dr. RAS is co-founder and CEO of Fore I’m a Versatile Entertainer (F.I.V.E.) LLC. He has a B.F.A. in Dance from the UARTS in Philadelphia, an MA in Ethnochoreology from the University of Limerick, Ireland, where he also completed his PhD in Arts Practice Research, as an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Scholar and former guest lecturer at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. His postgraduate research and written thesis, entitled Bridging Horizons: Embodied Cultural Understanding through the Development and Presentation of Ethio-Modern Dance, explores Dr. RAS' embodiment of Ethiopian and other world dance cultures, used as a tool in his urban contemporary choreographic process. Since the completion of his PhD, RAS Mikey has continued researching movement as cultural knowledge, while currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Dance at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Movement is the language of dance and has provided humanity with creative narratives about peoples’ origins, identity, experiences, and aspirations. For Dr. RAS ‘Movement is life’ and as an educator for nearly twenty years, he has employed this philosophy in his life practice and his teaching methods. Dr. RAS embraces the responsibility of sharing his embodied knowledge gained through lived experiences, with each student that he encounters.
Aside from being a dance practitioner/researcher, Dr. RAS Mikey is currently on the Board of Directors for the Dance Research Forum of Ireland (DRFI) and is a newly appointed mentor for the Coalition of African Diaspora Scholars Moving.
Dr. RAS is also an established singer/songwriter and release his debut solo album RASOUL in September of 2018. He has collaborated as a host/emcee, director, and producer with artists and companies from around the world including Pilobolus, Raven-Symoné, Major Lazer, the Marley family, Chronixx, Irish Aid, AfroFlow, Skales, and the International Organization of Migration in Addis Ababa, to name a few.
RAS Mikey is a product of Hip hop culture and is a Pan-Africanist, Rastafarian who repatriated to Ethiopia in 2006. He has facilitated a student/staff exchange between the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Addis Ababa University’s Yared School of Music, in order to forge future research and other academic collaborations between these Higher Education Institutions.
Dr. RAS feels compelled to nurture his gifts of artistic expression while sharing his movement experiences with his global community. “Movement is life and I am a Lifist.”
Movement is the language of dance and has provided humanity with creative narratives about peoples’ origins, identity, experiences, and aspirations. For Dr. RAS ‘Movement is life’ and as an educator for nearly twenty years, he has employed this philosophy in his life practice and his teaching methods. Dr. RAS embraces the responsibility of sharing his embodied knowledge gained through lived experiences, with each student that he encounters.
Aside from being a dance practitioner/researcher, Dr. RAS Mikey is currently on the Board of Directors for the Dance Research Forum of Ireland (DRFI) and is a newly appointed mentor for the Coalition of African Diaspora Scholars Moving.
Dr. RAS is also an established singer/songwriter and release his debut solo album RASOUL in September of 2018. He has collaborated as a host/emcee, director, and producer with artists and companies from around the world including Pilobolus, Raven-Symoné, Major Lazer, the Marley family, Chronixx, Irish Aid, AfroFlow, Skales, and the International Organization of Migration in Addis Ababa, to name a few.
RAS Mikey is a product of Hip hop culture and is a Pan-Africanist, Rastafarian who repatriated to Ethiopia in 2006. He has facilitated a student/staff exchange between the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Addis Ababa University’s Yared School of Music, in order to forge future research and other academic collaborations between these Higher Education Institutions.
Dr. RAS feels compelled to nurture his gifts of artistic expression while sharing his movement experiences with his global community. “Movement is life and I am a Lifist.”
Interviews