Improvising the Interface: Dance Technology and the New Black Dance Studies

Thomas F. DeFrantz is an artist and scholar who works at the apex of dance, technology, and critical Black studies. His historiographic and aesthetic focus opens shapeshifting conversations about the curation of art, ideas, politics, and bodies. DeFrantz will be at EMPAC as an advisor and collaborator to jumatatu m. poe and Jermone “Donte” Beacham’s Let ‘im Move You: This is a Formation residency. In conjunction with that project, he will present this public talk on his research. 

DeFrantz is professor in the departments of African and African-American Studies and of Dance at Duke University. He is co-editor of Black Performance Theory: An Anthology of Critical Readings, and Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance.