Profile
I'm interested in how we approach the world through art, through culture, and in our human interactions. Our lives are dynamic interrelationships with cultural expressions and the ways in which our current engagement and cultural history are embedded in our experience. My research and teaching consider the performance of culture as a means of understanding our selves, with art across disciplines being the means of entrance into a layered reality. I'm particularly interested in periods of cultural shift over the last 150 years, from dramatic social and cultural changes in the late 19th century through counter-cultural challenges to our worldview of the 1950s and 60s to our own current embattled cultural moment.
Degrees Held
PhD, Performance Studies, Northwestern University
MA, Performance Studies, Northwestern University
BA, English, Oberlin College
Professional Affiliation
I am building a media company based on my courses and writing about the Next New Now: the performance of culture in a world of dynamic change, to house my thinking and provide access and exploration through writing, online resources, podcasts and radio, and documentary film and video.
In addition to teaching, I also work in arts management and grant writing, currently working at freelance, after several years of consulting work as a development specialist.
I founded Human Company with Kelly Hanson, and am Co-Artistic Director, helping to explore developmental and cross-disciplinary models for performance in creating new work for the stage.
Recent Publications
Books:
The Next New Now: Performance, Modernism and Culture - 1870-1970. Under Contract, Routledge. Proposal accepted for publication and contract signed and 12 chapters completed to explore a history of performance and culture integrating influences from theater, dance, music and the visual arts with popular and avant garde culture expressions.
Pina Bausch: Performance Practitioners. 2nd Edition, Revised and Updated. Routledge, Abingdon and NewYork: 2018.
Pina Bausch: A Sourcebook, ed. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2012. A collection of source material on Pina Bausch and Tanztheater, with introductory essays and newly translated interviews with the artist.
Performance Practitioner Series: Pina Bausch. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2009. A monograph on Pina Bausch following the model of this series with sections on biography and context, major works, rehearsal and developed performance and exercises and techniques.
Seleted Essays in Edited Collections and Journals:
"18 - Bausch (1940-2009).” The Routledge Companion to Studio Performance Practice. Eds. Frank Chamberlain, Bernadette Sweeney, Routledge, Abingdon and New York: 2021. 34 pp - Practical exercises developed based on Pina Bausch’s performance practice.
“18.1 – Bausch – An Artistic and Cultural History” and “18.2 Kontakthof in Context.” The Routledge Companion to Performance Practitioners, V. 2. Eds. Frank Chamberlain, Bernadette Sweeney, Routledge, Abingdon and New York: 2020. 46 and 31 pp - Chapters on Pina Bausch for this compendium of performance research.
“Imagistic Structures in the Work of Pina Bausch.” The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 8: Bausch, Castellucci, Fabre. Ed. Luc Van den Dries and Timmy De Laet. Series Editor, Simon Shepherd, Methuen|Drama, London: 2019. 55-84
"A Theater of Bodily Presence: Pina Bausch and Tanztheater Wuppertal." The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Ed. Nadine George-Graves. London and New York: Oxford UP, 2015: 213-235.
"Bausch's American Legacy." Inheriting Dance: An Invitation from Pina. Ed. Marc Wagenbach and the Pina Bausch Foundation. Berlin: Transcript Verlag, 2014: 115-126.
“Creating the Moment: Anne Bogart and SITI Company” Actor Training: 2nd Edition. Ed. Alison Hodge. London and New York: Routledge, 2010: 288-304.
“Realigned Presence.” A Reflection on Pina Bausch. HotReview: a peer-reviewed online journal of theater. Ed. by Jonathan Kalb. http://www.hotreview.org/articles/realignedpresence.htm
“One Breath from the Wind of Change: Big Dance Theatre Developmental Process for The Other Here.” Theatre Forum, Summer 2007: 40-49.
“Dance into Theatre: Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.” Theatre Forum, Fall 2004: 59-66.
“Nur Du (Only You) a piece by Pina Bausch,” TPQ, Spring 1997: 288-298.
Performances and Appearances
Against the Dying of the Light (writer/co-producer), original piece created and directed by Kelly Hanson, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC, (2010, Irondale Theater Center, i-Park (East Haddam, CT), WOW Café)
III (producer/director) original works, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC,(2009, PS 122)
Faust (producer/writer),original piece, HUMAN COMPANY, NYC,(2008, BAX showcase)
Schiele (producer/director) original piece HUMAN COMPANY, NYC, (2007, HERE Arts Center)
Research Interests
I am interested in Avant-Garde artistic practice of the Modern Era across disciplines in the visual arts, music, dance and theater, cultural shifts and changes of the 20th century, and contemporary performance and artistic production.