Thomas F. DeFrantz

Thomas F. DeFrantz is Professor and Chair of African and African American Studies at Duke University, and director of SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology, a research group that explores emerging technology in live performance applications. He co-convened the Choreography and Corporeality working group (IFTR) from 2005-2013, and acted as President of the Society of Dance History Scholars from 2011-2014. He has taught courses in dance, gender, race, theater, and Black studies at NYU, Yale, Stanford, Hampshire College, Hollins University, and the University of Nice. His books include Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (2002), Dancing Revelations Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture (2004), and Black Performance Theory (2014). His creative productions include Queer Theory! An Academic Travesty, commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts, andMonk’s Mood: A Performance Meditation on the Life and Music of Thelonious Monk, performed in Botswana, France, India, South Africa, and New York City. He convenes the Black Performance Theory working group. In 2013, working with Takiyah Nur Amin, he founded the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance that staged the conference “Dancing the Afrofuture” in 2016. He recently taught at New Waves Institute in Trinidad, and ImpulseTanz in Austria.