Cisneros is a dance historian and critic, Romani scholar, flamenco historian and peace activist. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Department and received a Master’s degree in dance history and criticism from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Cisneros has worked as a professional dancer, choreographer, curator and qualified teacher and has lived and danced in various parts of the world. She has collaborated with many flamenco greats and other leading figures in the field of dance. She has taught throughout Europe and the US, including at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the Boston Conservatory and Brown University as well as at schools in Germany, Spain and Turkey. As a dance writer, she makes regular contributions to the Bachtrack magazine and Flamenco News. In the UK, she has danced with the Protein Dance Company.

Cisneros is involved in various EU-funded projects whose aim is to make education accessible to vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities. She sits on the boards of the Roma Coventry Project and the Early Dance Circle in the UK and the Drom Kotar Mestipen (Romani Association of Women) in Spain. She is also a senior research assistant at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research [http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/researchers/rosamaria-e-kostic-cisneros/ ] in the UK. She is inspired by interdisciplinary work as well as by collaborative projects and work modes. The combination of the practical and the theoretical underpins all her academic research interests, as does working with vulnerable groups and using the arts and education to engage communities and encourage involvement in a more inclusive society. Indeed, her guiding principle is bringing people together. Cultural heritage and digital technologies also inform her current approach.

As an independent artist, dancer, curator and teacher, Cisneros has organised various festivals and exhibitions. Her dance films have been screened in the UK, the US, Colombia, Mexico and Germany and her latest documentary won the prize for best documentary awarded by the der Summer Edition Euro Film Festival in 2016. She has launched her own production company, RosaSenCis Film Productions [www.rosasencis.org], which is currently working on the Oral History Project of the UK-based Society for Dance Research. Cisneros also works closely with the Centre for Research on Theories and Practices that Overcome Inequalities (CREA) at the University of Barcelona and continues to work on her PhD in sociology.