Thomas F. DeFrantz

Thomas F. DeFrantz is professor of Dance and African American Studies at Duke University. He is the director of SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology, a research group that explores emerging technology in live performance applications, in residence at Duke University.

His books include the edited volume Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, winner of the CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Publication and the Errol Hill Award presented by the American Society for Theater Research) and Dancing Revelations Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture (Oxford University Press, 2004, winner of the de la Torre Bueno Prize for Outstanding Publication in Dance).

A director and writer, his creative works have been commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts. In 2005 he worked with Donna Faye Burchfield to design the American Dance Festival/Hollins University MFA Program in dance. He co-convenes the working group Black Performance Theory as well as the international group Choreography and Corporeality of the International Federation for Theatre Research. He is currently president of the Society of Dance History Scholars, an international scholarly society that advances the field of dance studies through research, publication, performance, and outreach to audiences across the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

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