NewsBig media mention! I was quoted in the April 7, 2023 New York Times article “TikTok Is Dead (Maybe). Long Live TikTok Dance.”
I also served as an expert consultant for the "Dance Crazes" episode of the Netflix/Vox series Explained. (Season 3, Episode 11). Streaming now! |
About MeProfessor - I am an Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma, situated in the Culture, Arts, & Communication division of the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor in Residence in the Communication program at Northwestern University in Qatar. I hold a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Screen Cultures from Northwestern University and a dual BA in Rhetoric and Interdisciplinary Studies from UC Berkeley.
Interdisciplinary (Dance) Media Historian - My teaching and scholarship unpack the history and politics of screen media, with a particular focus on screendance (broadly defined). Though my doctorate is in Screen Cultures, my research methodologies often draw from both film/media studies and dance studies. I have written and presented on dance, media, and intermediality more generally in both academic and non-academic spaces--I welcome invitations to speak in either context! Writer - I am currently working on a book manuscript that expands on my dissertation research, as well as a few conference talks and journal articles. My book analyzes danced performances of race and/as masculinity in mid-century U.S. film and TV. The in-progress journal articles explore other dance-media relationships. Dancer & Choreographer - A classically trained ballet dancer, I have spent the last decade dancing with and choreographing for Modet Dance Collective, which I co-founded in 2013. We are currently on hiatus, but you can still occasionally catch me dancing around the Pacific Northwest. (Digital) Archivist - I catalogued the many (500+!) dance films and videos in Chicago Film Archives' vast Ruth Page Collection. This exciting collection, which spans 1922-1999, serves as a visual record of Page's long and influential career as a Chicago-based dancer, choreographer, and company director. Poet & Photographer - In a past life, I considered myself both a poet and a photographer. I honed my skills in creative writing and photography courses across four colleges and universities. In 2009, I was awarded the Emily Chamberlain Cook prize in poetry, and my poems and images have been published in The Berkeley Poetry Review and the Cal Literature and Arts Magazine (CLAM); my photographic work was exhibited at the Alphonse Berber Gallery in 2009. In 2010, I started a (still unfinished) book of poems about ancestral trauma. More recently, I have slowly returned to photography by doing portraits for friends and colleagues. |