Jeff McMahon completed a Master of Fine Arts in the writing program, School of the Arts, Columbia University (1998), after completing a bachelor's in interdisciplinary art at SUNY/Empire State College in 1995. In 2001, he became resident artist at Arizona State University, was appointed Assistant Professor in the School of Theatre and Film (2005), became Associate Professor in 2011, and Professor in 2020. He has taught at Instituto Superior de Arte (Cuba), Dartington College(U.K.), Glasgow School of Art, the Center for New Dance Development (Netherlands), Kutztown Univ., Otis Art Institute, Art Center College of Design, and California Inst. of the Arts. He chaired and served on panels for the College Art Assoc., Performance Studies Int., Hemispheric Inst. for Performance and Politics, the Assoc. for Theater in Higher Education, the Performance Art, Culture, Pedagogy Symposium at Penn State Univ., Modern Language Assoc., the Rothermere American Institute at Univ. of Oxford, and the Society for Scientific Study of Sexuality.
He has been a writing fellow at the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, NY, and at the Fundación Valparaíso in Mojácar, Spain. His book, "Six Monologues 1990-2007" (NoPassport Press) and his short narrative film, (Ob)scene, were both released in 2018.
His accomplishments include being presented by Performance Space 122, Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), The Kitchen, PS 1, LACE, Cleveland Performance Art Fest., Los Angeles Festival, Jacob's Pillow, Dixon Place, Highways, Son of Semele, The Moth, Center for Contemporary Arts (Santa Fe), Dance Works (Toronto), and other venues in U.S. Canada, Europe. Dance films shown worldwide and nationally broadcast TV. Training: theatre/dance at Reed College, and with Joan Skinner, Mangrove Collective, James Tyler, Ruth Zaporah, and David Schein. Voice/singing with Jeannette LoVetri. He received eight fellowships and two project grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a fellowship from the NY Foundation for the Arts, funding from the NY State Council on the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and a fellowship from the Monette/Horwitz Trust. Essays published in Table Talk: From the Threepenny Review (Counterpoint Press 2015), Innovation in Five Acts: Strategies for Theatre and Performance ed. Caridad Svich (TCG 2015), Culture Wars (New Press), Poor Dancer's Almanac (Duke Univ. Press), Hyperallergic, The Guardian, Performance Research, TDR/The Drama Review, Kenyon Review Online, Contact Quarterly, PAJ/Performing Arts Journal, City Limits, Teaching Tolerance, The Threepenny Review, Movement Research, Gay/Lesbian Review Worldwide, and The New England Review.
