Takiyah Nur Amin, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Dance Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Africana Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where she teaches courses in dance history and theory in the liberal studies curriculum, Department of Dance and College of Art and Architecture Honors Program. Her research and teaching interests include Black performance and aesthetics, 20th century American concert dance and pedagogical issues in dance studies. Dr. Amin is currently working on a book project that explores the work of Black women choreographers during the height of the US-based Black Power and Black Arts Movements. In service to the dance field, Dr. Amin is a member of the Board of Directors for the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD,) co-founder (with Dr. Nyama McCarthy Brown) of CORD's Diversity Working Group and a founding member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD.) She has served as peer reviewer for both Dance Research Journal and Dance Chronicle and is the host of the New Book Network's Dance Channel. Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin is a proud native of Buffalo, NY and is the eldest daughter of Karima and the late Abdul Jalil Amin.
Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson is an Assistant Professor of African & Afro-American and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University. A Ford Foundation Diversity Fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. She served as the Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies at Northwestern University. Johnson's work examines the politics of black movement including dance, diasporic travel, and gentrification. Currently, Johnson is working on her book manuscript on the industry of West African dance in the United States and Guinea. Johnson is a founding member of The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance and is a Member of the Board of Directors for the Society of Dance History Scholars. She is also a dancer, and has performed internationally.
Andrea E. Woods Valdés is an Associate Professor at Duke University teaching modern dance and dance for the camera. She has directed Duke In Ghana summer study (2012-2014). SOULOWORKS/Andrea E. Woods & Dancers recently celebrated 20 years of dancing and dancemaking. Previous resident of Brooklyn, NY, and native of Philadelphia, Woods has danced with Clive Thompson, Mafata, Saeko Ichinohe and Leni Wylliams dance companies. She is a former dancer/rehearsal director of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. and has a BFA from Adelphi University, an MFA in dance from Ohio State and an MAH in Caribbean Cultural Studies from SUNY Buffalo. She has been a staff writer for Attitude: The Dancers' Magazine. Her work has taken her to: Cannes, Taiwan, Russia, Senegal, Morocco, Korea, Poland, Singapore, Belize, Yucatán, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Ghana, Trinidad, Cuba and throughout the US. She has been a guest artist at: Medgar Evers College, Howard University, Ohio University, Rhode Island College, California State University Long Beach, North Carolina School of the Arts, Hollins University, Sarah Lawrence, Goucher College, NYU Tisch School of the Arts (faculty), Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Spelman College. She has received grants from: The Jerome Foundation, (NEFA) The National Dance Project, National Performance Network and Arts International and is a recipient of the NC Arts Council Artist Fellowship. Woods uses dance as contemporary folklore with a creative process strongly linked to identity and representation. Her areas of interest include women in the arts, Afro-Cuban dance/music, African Diaspora history/culture and Dance for the Camera. Her research interest is in exploring the intra-cultural, interdisciplinary dialogues and activities that happen between Black women artists beyond the boundaries of nation and politics.
www.souloworks.com
Carl Paris holds a Ph.D. in Dance and Cultural Studies (Temple University) and a Masters Degree in Dance Education (NYU). He performed major roles with Olatunji African Dance, Eleo Pomare, Martha Graham, and Alvin Ailey. He taught and choreographed throughout Europe and in Spain, and received Spain’s National Dance Award in1995 in recognition for his contribution to the art and pedagogy of dance, as well as dance courses at California Institute of the Arts, NYU, Temple University, Long Island University, and MIT. He has published several articles in leading dance and theater journals. He currently teaches courses in Africana Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Raquel Monroe received her Ph.D. from UCLA in Culture and Performance. She is an interdisciplinary performance scholar and artist whose research interests include black social dance, black feminisms, and popular culture. Monroe’s scholarship appears in the Journal of Pan-African Studies, and several anthologies on race, sexuality, dance and popular culture. With Melissa Blanco-Borelli, Monroe co-edited“Screening the Skin: Issues of Race and Nation,” a special issue of the International Journal of Screendance. She is completing a monograph that investigates how black feminist politics emerge through the dancing bodies of black female cultural producers in popular culture. As a maker and performer, Monroe works with the Propelled Animals and the Baker-Taparga Dance Project creating immersive, interdisciplinary performance installations. She has also worked with choreographers David Roussève, Ana Maria Alvarez, and Marianne Kim. Monroe is the Co-Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and an Associate Professor in Dance at Columbia College Chicago. She is a founding board member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance.
Makeda Thomas is a New York/Port of Spain based dance artist and founding director of the Dance and Performance Institute, Trinidad and Tobago, which marked its 10th Anniversary in 2020. Interdisciplinary in nature, her artistic practice, scholarship and teaching are situated at the intersection of performance practice, diaspora theory, dance studies, ethnography and black feminisms. She has presented intermedia performances in relation to her scholarship internationally, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Live Arts, HARLEM Stage/Aaron Davis Hall, Teatro Africa, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, CCA7, and Mexico’s Teatro de la Ciudad, with awards from Creative Capital, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and 651 ARTS, among others. Thomas’ work is published in “Curating Live Arts: Critical Perspectives, Essays, and Conversations on Theory and Practice” and in Small Axe: A Caribbean Platform for Criticism. Thomas serves on the founding Board of the Collegium for African Diasporic Dance.
C. Kemal Nance, PhD (Kibon), a native of Chester, Pennsylvania, is a master teacher of the Umfundalai technique of contemporary African dance. At the 2014 Consortium of Black Arts in Salvador, Bahian attendees nicknamed Nance after a Brazilian brand of ice cream, Kibon, to reflect the "delicious time" they had dancing in his workshop. Dr. Nance leads the National Association of American African Dance Teachers, a consortium of African dance artists and scholars who develop pedagogy development experiences for budding African dance teachers for which he coedited Iwé Illanan: The Umfundalai Teacher's Handbook with Umfundalai progenitor and mentor Kariamu Welsh, DArts. Dr. Nance sits on the executive board of the Collegium of African Diaspora Dance and has authored a chapter in Karen Bond's Dance and Quality of Life. Currently, Dr. Nance directs a Black male dance initiative that produces choreographies that centralize Black manhood called the Nance Dance Collective (NDC). The work Dr. Nance has mounted on the NDC can be seen at the Little Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica; the Afro Dance Explosion Performance Showcase in London; and in the forthcoming film Deez Nuts: Black Bodies Dancing Defiance. His recent work on U of I students, I Wonder . . . , not only was chosen to represent the university at the 2019 American College Dance Association's Central Region's Conference at Missouri State University but also was chosen to close the conference's gala concert. Dr. Nance is a proud member of the University of Illinois Black Chorus under the direction of Dr. Ollie Watts Davis and of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. He holds a BA in sociology/anthropology with a concentration in black studies from Swarthmore College, where he served on the dance faculty for 20 years, and holds an MEd and a PhD in dance from Temple University, where he was awarded the Katherine Dunham Award for Creative Dance Research.
Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A Ford Foundation Diversity Pre and Post-Doctoral Fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Johnson has served as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Africana Studies at Barnard College, a Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellow at Wellesley College, and a Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies at Northwestern University. In 2016, Johnson was awarded the Michael L. Walzer '56 Award from Brandeis University for combining "superlative scholarship with inspired teaching."
Johnson's work examines the politics of black movement including dance, diasporic travel, and gentrification. Interdisciplinary in nature, her scholarship and teaching are situated at the intersection of diaspora theory, dance and performance studies, ethnography, and black feminism. Her first book manuscript, Rhythm Nation: West African Dance and the Politics of Diaspora, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Her second book project is a cultural history of black American dance.
Johnson serves on the founding board for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, and on the Dance Studies Association Board of Directors. She is also a professional dancer, and has performed internationally.
Johnson's work examines the politics of black movement including dance, diasporic travel, and gentrification. Interdisciplinary in nature, her scholarship and teaching are situated at the intersection of diaspora theory, dance and performance studies, ethnography, and black feminism. Her first book manuscript, Rhythm Nation: West African Dance and the Politics of Diaspora, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Her second book project is a cultural history of black American dance.
Johnson serves on the founding board for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, and on the Dance Studies Association Board of Directors. She is also a professional dancer, and has performed internationally.
John O. Perpener III is a dance historian and independent scholar based in Charlotte, NC. He received a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and a MFA in Dance from Southern Methodist University. He has held teaching positions at Florida State University, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the University of Maryland, College Park, and at Howard University. His book, African-American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, was published by the University of Illinois Press in 2001. He also served as a primary consultant and commentator for the PBS documentary on African-American dance, Free to Dance. As a dancer and choreographer, he worked with the Hartford Ballet Company, the D.C. Black Repertory Dance Company, and the Maryland Dance Theater. More recently, he performed in Visible, co-choreographed by Nora Chipaumire and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Gia Kourlas of the New York Times wrote, “Oddly, it’s Mr. Perpener, a dance historian, who anchors ‘Visible’ with the gravity it deserves and the lightness it needs. That he understands dance is more than evident in his scholarship; the surprise here is how he knows how to own a stage.” He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2012-2013) for his project on African-American concert dancers and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And, in 2014-2015, he was a Fellow at New York’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Ava LaVonne Vinesett is an Associate Professor of Dance in the Duke University Dance Program. She holds an MFA from UNC Greensboro and a BA from NC Central University. Her research examines how African and African-derived dance unfolds its many identities. The unfolding identity of dance creates a framework for analyzing the aesthetic, technical, ceremonial, spiritual, and sacred tenets that layer traditional African and African-derived dance forms.
Shireen Dickson's performance background spans from being a teen member of the National Tap Ensemble to professional cheerleading for the NBA to Equity and Off-Broadway theater to burner-inspired happenings in public venues. As a dancer with and assistant to award-winning choreographer Dianne McIntyre for 10 years, she collaborated with legendary musicians such as Lester Bowie and Olu Dara and performed/taught at such venues including the National Black Arts Festival, National Black Theater Festival, The American Dance Festival, the Kennedy Center, Walker Center for the Arts, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Opera Theater of St. Louis among numerous others.
A former NYCDOE teacher, she has developed arts-based youth leadership curricula and facilitated workshops at many NYC and national organizations and conferences. Shireen was the founding Community Engagement Director for both Elixabeth Streb Lab for Action Mechanics and Dance Parade Inc., and is a founding member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance at Duke University.
Shireen’s dance interests lie in vernacular styles including Tap, Swing, Improvisation, Hip Hop, and Traditional jazz, and world rhythmic forms. As an arts facilitator, her focus is on interactive movement-based encounters that revision traditional ideas about art-making and art-learning. She is continually grateful for the opportunity to learn and share with Slippage minds.
A former NYCDOE teacher, she has developed arts-based youth leadership curricula and facilitated workshops at many NYC and national organizations and conferences. Shireen was the founding Community Engagement Director for both Elixabeth Streb Lab for Action Mechanics and Dance Parade Inc., and is a founding member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance at Duke University.
Shireen’s dance interests lie in vernacular styles including Tap, Swing, Improvisation, Hip Hop, and Traditional jazz, and world rhythmic forms. As an arts facilitator, her focus is on interactive movement-based encounters that revision traditional ideas about art-making and art-learning. She is continually grateful for the opportunity to learn and share with Slippage minds.
Nadine George-Graves’ work is situated at the intersections of African American studies, critical gender studies, performance studies, theatre history, and dance history. She is the author of The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters and the Negotiation of Race, Gender, and Class in African American Theater, 1900-1940 and Urban Bush Women: Twenty Years of Dance Theater, Community Engagement and Working it Out as well as numerous articles on African American performance. She is the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater, a collection of border-crossing scholarship on embodiment and theatricality. She has also written on primitivity, ragtime dance, tap dance legend Jeni LeGon, identity politics and performance, competition, social change, early African American theatre and the future of performance in the academy. She has given talks, led community engagement projects, and has served on many boards and committees. She is a past-president of the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD).
George-Graves is also an artist, and her creative work is part and parcel of her research. She is an adapter, director and dance theatre maker. Her recent creative projects include Architectura, a dance theatre piece about the ways we build our lives; Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A and Topdog/ Underdog; Anansi The Story King, an original adaptation of Anansi stories using college students, professionals, and 4th graders; and Sugar, a digital humanities project at the nexus of creativity and scholarship. She joins Ohio State after teaching for over 20 years at University of California, San Diego and Yale
George-Graves is also an artist, and her creative work is part and parcel of her research. She is an adapter, director and dance theatre maker. Her recent creative projects include Architectura, a dance theatre piece about the ways we build our lives; Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking A and Topdog/ Underdog; Anansi The Story King, an original adaptation of Anansi stories using college students, professionals, and 4th graders; and Sugar, a digital humanities project at the nexus of creativity and scholarship. She joins Ohio State after teaching for over 20 years at University of California, San Diego and Yale
Thomas F. DeFrantz is Professor of Dance at Duke University and specializes in African diaspora aesthetics, dance historiography, and the intersections of dance and technology. He is co-editor of Black Performance Theory: An Anthology of Critical Readings (with Anita Gonzalez, Duke University Press, 2014) and editor of Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (Wisconsin University Press, 2002), which received the CHOICE award for Outstanding Academic Publication and the 2003 Errol Hill Award presenting by the American Society for Theater Research. He has published extensively, with his monograph Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American (Oxford University Press, 2004) receiving the 2004 de la Torre Bueno Prize for outstanding publication in Dance. He serves on various editorial boards and was recently President of the Society of Dance History Scholars (2011-2014). He has also produced and participated in many performance productions, and currently runs the research group SLIPPAGE at Duke University, a group that works to create innovative interfaces for the telling of alternative histories.