Takiyah Nur Amin
Takiyah Nur Amin (Ph.D., Temple University) is a dance scholar, educator, and consultant. Her research focuses on 20th-century American concert dance, African diaspora dance performance/aesthetics and pedagogical issues in dance studies. Her research has appeared in several academic journals including The Black Scholar, Dance Chronicle, Dance Research Journal, the Western Journal of Black Studies and the Journal of Pan-African Studies. Her book chapters have been published in several edited volumes, including Jazz Dance: A History of Its Roots and Branches, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen, Rethinking Dance History and Are You Entertained?: Black Popular Culture in the 21st Century Dr. Amin is a twice-elected board member of the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD,) co-founder of CORD's Diversity Working Group, a founding member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance (CADD) and a host on the New Book Network's Dance Channel. An "interdisciplinary humanist," Dr. Amin teaches courses in dance history, Black aesthetics and the sociocultural role of dance in human society. Takiyah Nur Amin, Ph.D. is a proud native of Buffalo, NY and is the eldest daughter of Karima and the late Abdul Jalil Amin.
Stafford C. Berry, Jr.
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Stafford C. Berry, Jr., MFA is a Professor of Practice in both African American and African Diaspora Studies and Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance at Indiana University. He is an accomplished artist, educator, activist, and scholar of African-rooted dance, theatre, and aesthetics with an extensive background in arts and education. Mr. Berry is a certified teacher of the Umfundalai Contemporary African Dance Technique. He was Associate Artistic Director of Baba Chuck Davis' internationally acclaimed African American Dance Ensemble (AADE) for 14 years; Assistant to the Choreographer of Kariamu & Company: Traditions in Philadelphia for 5 years; and former Faculty at the American Dance Festival for 5 years. Most recently, he was awarded the 2021 IU Global Popular Music Team Research Grant funded by the Mellon Foundation for embodied research on two dances from the southern region of Africa. Finally, the Mayor of Cincinnati, OH proclaimed October 5th as “Stafford C. Berry, Jr. Day” in recognition of his work in arts education and performance throughout the city as the coveted Taft Museum of Art’s 2017 Duncanson Artist in Residence recipient.
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Thomas F. DeFrantz
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.
Shireen Dickson
Shireen Dickson has worked in dance and arts education for over 20 years – as a performer, teaching artist, lecturer, curriculum developer, and NYC Dept of Education classroom teacher. Her performance experience spans from a teen National Tap Ensemble member to professional cheerleading for the NBA to Equity, Off-Broadway and ‘experimental’ and improvisational theater. She performed with and assisted award-winning choreographer Dianne McIntyre for 10 years, performing and teaching at such venues including the National Black Arts Festival, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, The American Dance Festival, and Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. Shireen was the founding Community Engagement Director for both MacArthur winner Elizabeth Streb’s SLAM and Dance Parade NY, and currently consults on culturally- and community-responsible arts-based projects nationwide. Since 2010 Shireen has directed OKRA Dance, which presents African and American diasporic dance and world rhythmic forms in schools, libraries, museums and festivals throughout the US. Shireen is a founding executive board member of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance based at Duke University and directed their bi-annual conference for 10 years. She currently manages SLIPPAGE Lab at Northwestern University alongside Thomas F. DeFrantz, mentors classroom teachers in Auditorium Theatre education programs, and is the interim conference director for Illinois Dance Education Organization.
Avis Hatcher-Puzzo
Avis HatcherPuzzo is the Associate Professor of Dance and Theater at Fayetteville State University, in North Carolina. She developed a Minor in Dance and has taught in Performing and Fine Arts and Health, Physical Education and Human Services departments concurrently. Her focus is the application of liberal arts pedagogy at historically black colleges, approaches to the curriculum by exploring concepts in dance that relate to human development, culture and society as a whole. Her research explores arts pedagogy and culture at HBCUs and the purpose the arts serves on campus, and in the surrounding communities.
Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson
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.
Nyama McCarthy-Brown
Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown is a culturally sustaining pedagogue. She is an Associate Professor of Dance Pedagogy through Community Engagement on faculty at The Ohio State University and is the university’s first Artist Laureate. She teaches dance education and contemporary dance with Africanist underpinnings, grounded in the celebration of all movers; and was awarded two national teaching awards, in 2021. She is also an established scholar, with numerous academic publications. In 2017, her book, Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Research, Theory, and Practice was published. Her second book, Skin Colored Pointes: Interviews with Women of Color in Ballet, was released in 2024. Dr. McCarthy-Brown is an active workshop facilitator and consultant for diversifying dance curriculum for organizations such as: San Francisco Ballet School; Colorado Ballet; BalletMet, Dance Educators Coalition, Minnesota; Rutgers University Dance Department; University of Buffalo; National Dance Institute; and Dance Education Laboratory.
Raquel Monroe
Raquel Monroe, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary performance scholar/artist/administrator and mother whose research interests include Black social dance, Black queer feminisms, popular culture, and the efficacy of collaboration to create social change. Monroe’s scholarship appears in journals and anthologies on race, sexuality, dance, and popular culture. Her in process monograph Chi-City Moves: Black Queer Feminist Choreographic Praxis in Chicago employs Black queer feminist choreographic praxis to theorize performances and acts of protest by Black femme choreographers in Chicago during the Black Lives Matter era. Monroe realizes her passion for collaboration as a member of the interdisciplinary arts collective the Propelled Animals.
Monroe is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Academic Affairs and a Professor in Theatre in Dance at the University of Texas, Austin. She formally served as a professor in Dance and Co-Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Columbia College Chicago.
Monroe is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Academic Affairs and a Professor in Theatre in Dance at the University of Texas, Austin. She formally served as a professor in Dance and Co-Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Columbia College Chicago.
C. Kemal Nance
C. Kemal Nance, PhD, is the senior master teacher of the Umfundalai technique of contemporary African dance for which he was named, Oluko. Dr. Nance leads the National Association of American African Dance Teachers (NAAADT), a consortium of African dance artists and scholars who develop pedagogy development experiences for budding African dance teachers for which he co-edited Iwé Illanan: The Umfundalai Teacher's Handbook with Umfundalai's progenitor and mentor the late Kariamu Welsh, DArts. Currently, Dr. Nance directs a Black male dance initiative that produces choreographies that centralize Black manhood called the Nance Dance Collective (NDC). The choreographies he 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 his short dance film, Deez Nuts: Black Bodies Dancing Defiance. Dr. Nance is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance and African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he also serves as a Dean's Fellow in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. The National Dance Education Organization (NDEO) named him an "Outstanding Leader in higher Education in 2023. He holds a BA in Sociology/Anthropology with a concentration in Black Studies from Swarthmore College and holds an MEd and a PhD in Dance from Temple University.
Cynthia Oliver
Cynthia Oliver is a St. Croix, Virgin Island reared dance maker, performer and scholar. Her scholarly work is focused in the Anglophone Caribbean and her dance theatre constructions incorporate textures of Caribbean performance with African and American aesthetic sensibilities. She has toured the globe as a featured dancer with contemporary companies David Gordon Pick Up Co., Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Bebe Miller Company, and Tere O’Connor Dance and as an actor in works by Laurie Carlos, Greg Tate, Ione, Ntozake Shange, and Deke Weaver. She earned a PhD in performance studies from New York University, is a New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Award winning choreographer, a 2016 Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography Mellon Fellow, a 2017 University of Illinois Center for Advanced Studies Associate (and now CAS Professor), and 2007 University Scholar awardee. Formerly Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation in the Humanities, Arts and Related Fields at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Cynthia is the Gutgsell professor in Dance with affiliations in African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. She is currently Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Arts Integration. Oliver is a widely published author with articles in a variety of journals and edited volumes. Her single authored book is titled, Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the Caribbean (2009). Her last evening-length performance work, “Virago-Man Dem” premiered at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM) Next Wave Festival 2017 and toured the country. She is a 2021 United States Artist, 2021 Doris Duke Artist, and a 2022 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.
Makeda Thomas
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.
Andrea E. Woods Valdés
Dr. Andrea E. Woods Valdés is the Artistic Director of Souloworks /Andrea E. Woods & Dancers and chair of the Duke University Dance Program. She founded wimmim@work and the Calabasa Calabasa: Dancing and Making the Music of Life summer intensive to develop Black audiences and performing and teaching opportunities for wimmin of color. She is a former dancer/rehearsal director with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Dance Co. She holds an MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University and a MAH in Caribbean Cultural Studies from SUNY Buffalo and a PhD in dance from Texas Woman’s University with a focus on embodied Black aesthetics, spirit and sweat, and Black women choreographers. Woods Valdés has received grants from The Jerome Foundation, (NEFA) The National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Arts International, and the North Carolina Arts Council. She has been part of the American Dance Festival Faculty. She calls her work contemporary African American folklore. She teaches Afro-contemporary, modern dance, and dance/vocal/shekere work. Her creative process draws from storytelling, African diaspora cultural history, blues, jazz, folk music, family folklore, and movement reflective of the African Diaspora social and cultural experience. She calls her projects SOULOWORKS because they are works from the heart, works from the soul. www.souloworks.com.
Ava Lavonne Vinesett
Ava LaVonne Vinesett is a dancer, choreographer, and scholar, who currently serves as a Professor of Dance and Faculty Director of the Baldwin Scholars Program at Duke University. She co-founded Indigo Yard Gals (IYG) with Jessica Almy Pagán and is a founding member and former Assistant Director of the Chuck Davis African American Dance Ensemble. Her work explores identity as a danced concept—a dynamic, fluid space where race, gender, nationhood, size, language, religion, and power converge in motion. Through her choreographic lens, she interrogates how the body becomes a site of memory, history, and cultural narrative.
With research interests rooted in Black visibility in public spaces and memory, she examines African-based practices of healing in Cuba, Brazil, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. These healing traditions and their relationship to dance became a foundation for co-founding Indigo Yard Gals, a collective focused on dance, ritual, and healing as transformative practices. IYG’s work includes site-responsive performances such as Enter the Yard (2016), Go To Water (2017), and Indigo Tent: Caroline and Jim, More than a Silhouette (2022). These performances weave together movement, sculpture, and ritual to examine the potency of shared spaces, ancestral divinities, and spiritual medicine, which often emerge in the most intimate places—what IYG calls "HOME."
Through critical fabulation, she interrogates and re-imagines histories often untold, engaging in storytelling that binds past, present, and future, while centering Black narratives. IYG's projects engage deeply with social justice, environmental activism, identity, and imagination, sparking dialogues around community, culture, and possibility.
She is a prolific choreographer and scholar, with writings in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and The Oxford Handbook of Black Dance, edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz. Her work continues to challenge and expand the boundaries of dance as an academic and creative field, integrating embodied knowledge with critical theory to highlight the intersections of movement, history, and healing.
With research interests rooted in Black visibility in public spaces and memory, she examines African-based practices of healing in Cuba, Brazil, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. These healing traditions and their relationship to dance became a foundation for co-founding Indigo Yard Gals, a collective focused on dance, ritual, and healing as transformative practices. IYG’s work includes site-responsive performances such as Enter the Yard (2016), Go To Water (2017), and Indigo Tent: Caroline and Jim, More than a Silhouette (2022). These performances weave together movement, sculpture, and ritual to examine the potency of shared spaces, ancestral divinities, and spiritual medicine, which often emerge in the most intimate places—what IYG calls "HOME."
Through critical fabulation, she interrogates and re-imagines histories often untold, engaging in storytelling that binds past, present, and future, while centering Black narratives. IYG's projects engage deeply with social justice, environmental activism, identity, and imagination, sparking dialogues around community, culture, and possibility.
She is a prolific choreographer and scholar, with writings in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine and The Oxford Handbook of Black Dance, edited by Thomas F. DeFrantz. Her work continues to challenge and expand the boundaries of dance as an academic and creative field, integrating embodied knowledge with critical theory to highlight the intersections of movement, history, and healing.
André M. Zachery
André M. Zachery is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist of Haitian and African American descent and is a scholar, researcher, and technologist with a BFA from Ailey/Fordham University and an MFA in Performance & Interactive Media Arts from CUNY/Brooklyn College. As the artistic director of Renegade Performance Group his practice, research, and community engagement artistically focused on merging choreography, technology, and Black cultural practices through multimedia work. André is a 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts Gregory Millard Fellow in Choreography, a 2019 Jerome Hill Foundation Fellow in Choreography, and a 2024 Café Royal Foundation Award.
André is an Assistant Arts Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts in the Dance Department at NYU. As a scholar, he has been a member of panels, led group talks, facilitated discussions, and presented research on a myriad of topics including Afrofuturism, African Diaspora practices, and philosophies, Black cultural aesthetics, technology in art and performance, and expanding the boundaries of art making within the community. He has been a panelist and presented his research at institutions such as Duke University, Brooklyn College, University of Virginia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is an advisory board member of the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado. André has taught at Brooklyn College and been a guest faculty member at the dance programs of Florida State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ohio State University, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of California Riverside.
André is an Assistant Arts Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts in the Dance Department at NYU. As a scholar, he has been a member of panels, led group talks, facilitated discussions, and presented research on a myriad of topics including Afrofuturism, African Diaspora practices, and philosophies, Black cultural aesthetics, technology in art and performance, and expanding the boundaries of art making within the community. He has been a panelist and presented his research at institutions such as Duke University, Brooklyn College, University of Virginia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is an advisory board member of the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado. André has taught at Brooklyn College and been a guest faculty member at the dance programs of Florida State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, The Ohio State University, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of California Riverside.