ATD Spotlight
Honoring Individuals, Groups, and Projects That Contribute to American Civic Life and Public Understanding Through Dance
Román Baca is a choreographer, educator, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran. His unique career path has bridged the worlds of dance and military service. Baca grew up in New Mexico and began his artistic journey as a classically trained ballet dancer. In 2001, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served in Iraq, experiences that profoundly shaped his worldview. After returning home, he founded Exit12 Dance Company in 2007 with his wife, ballerina Lisa Fitzgerald. The company became a platform for transforming the trauma of war into artistic expression, empathy, and understanding. Through performance and education, the company’s dancers address the divide between veterans and civilians.
By creating choreography that connects military experience and civilian life, Baca shows how movement can help people process trauma and restore a sense of humanity. His work consistently focuses on healing, reconciliation, and communication through shared stories of service.
Since its founding in 2007, Exit12 Dance Company has stayed true to its mission to tell stories of war, recovery, and human resilience. Under Baca’s artistic direction, the company integrates authentic military gestures, ballet vocabulary, and community collaboration. Baca’s choreography combines precision rooted in Marine Corps discipline with expressive classical ballet training that conveys extraordinary emotional truth. In works that explore the relationship between trauma and courage, Exit12 Dance Company’s productions frequently bear the marks of a working process that brings together veterans and civilians in workshops and performances.
Exit12 has performed across the United States and internationally, including at the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. Baca’s work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and featured in numerous press outlets. He is recognized as a pioneer of dance-driven veteran storytelling and as an advocate for the healing power of the arts.
For their empathetic vision and their contribution to American civic life, America Through Dance salutes Román Baca and all the members of Exit12 Dance Company.
Links & Resources
Exit12 Dance Company Official Site
Román Baca Interview, Military Times
Major Works
Conflict(ed) – A work exploring the impact of combat and the emotional aftermath of returning home.
Habibi Hhaloua – Based on Baca’s experiences in Iraq, this ballet portrays the complexity of human relationships during wartime.
This Is War – A dance-theatre work that combines movement, voice, and projection to depict the transformation from soldier to civilian.
Suggested Classroom Discussion Prompts:
How can dance communicate emotions that are difficult to express in words?
In what ways does Exit12’s work help veterans and civilians understand one another?
What do you think it means to ‘transform pain into art’?
How might Baca’s military background influence his choreography and leadership style?
Explore more of Baca’s work:
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Profile
Image Source: Flickr, Photo by Ryan Lash.
