Román Baca

Román Baca is the Artistic Director of Exit12 Dance Company and a PhD Candidate investigating the military human through the arts at York St. John University in the UK. Román Baca is also the Deputy Project Manager for Bravo 22, a Royal British Legion Funded Recovery Through the Arts Programme and the Project Manager for an arts and recovery pilot project with the Ministry of Defense. Both programs are delivered by The Drive Project.

Working through the arts with the military Mr. Baca has developed major partnerships and projects with world-class institutions including the Intrepid Museum, The British Museum, the Ministry of Defense, CreatiVets, The Metropolitan Museum of Art among others.

Mr. Baca is a classically trained ballet dancer and choreographer. He has danced in the US for the New Mexico Ballet Company, Connecticut Ballet, the Nutmeg Ballet, Ballet Theatre Company, and performed in several musicals including West Side Story, Chicago, Fiddler on the Roof, and Guys and Dolls. He has served as movement director for several off-Broadway plays and has taught ballet in London and NYC at Pineapple, Alvin Ailey, Peridance, City Academy, and the United Nations, and has been the artistic director and general manager of two professional dance organizations.

In 2001, recognizing his desire to defend the defenseless, he took a hiatus from dance and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving as a machine-gunner and fire-team leader in Fallujah, Iraq during the US-led Iraq War.

After the war, Mr. Baca returned to dance and co-founded Exit12 Dance Company, which tells war stories, choreographically, to increase cross-cultural understanding and heal divisions. He has choreographed and championed dance works that explore the military veteran experience and the impact of war on civilians and families. He also leads workshops and lectures at schools, universities, organizations, and veteran’s centers to aid veterans’ recovery and inspire critical conversations about military service through the power of dance.

Mr. Baca graduated from St. Mary’s College of California with a BA, cum laude, in the Performing Arts and was awarded a Fulbright to the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, UK where he completed his MFA with Merit in Choreography. Mr. Baca’s practice-based research produced his thesis titled Choreographing Soldier’s Stories to Provoke Empathy in Audiences which has won major awards. He has also served as a Junior Research Scientist and data manager for several military research studies.

Mr. Baca has worked with the Soldiers’ Arts Academy C.I.C. and provided production support to the critically acclaimed play Soldier On’s UK tour including a six-week run on the West End. Mr. Baca also served on the leadership team that delivered the first UK Veterans Art Festival alongside the 2019 UK Invictus Trials in Sheffield, UK. He has also served as a panelist reviewing awards for Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network, US-UK Fulbright candidates, and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts Dance Panel 2020.

Mr. Baca is also a 2024 Fellow with the George W. Bush Institute’s Stand-To Veteran Leadership Program, is the recipient of a 2020 scholarship to York St. John University, the 2019 Selma Jeanne Cohen Dance Lecture Award, a 2017-2018 US-UK Fulbright Postgraduate Award to the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London, a 2018 HillVet Nominee, a 2015 New York State Veterans’ Hall of Fame Inductee, an 2014 Art and Healing Network Awardee, and has served as a fellow with Veterans in Global Leadership, The Mission Continues, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Baca is also Past Adjutant of Hayes-Velhage American Legion Post 96 in West Hartford, Conn.