Self-Reflexivity of a Dance Scholar: The Place of Structured Improvisation, Care, and Debate

I write. I edit. I teach. I curate conferences. I am a full professor at Arizona State University (ASU), a large research-one public university, specializing in dance history, theory, and ethics. Here I reflect on these different processes, recognizing that these labels represent different avenues by which I manifest larger existential concerns. Driving this self-analysis is the cancer diagnosis I received in January 2023 and subsequent grueling treatments that interrupted my planned research agenda. Instead, what became urgent was making meaning of the strategies that have allowed me to navigate my academic career to date. In the process, I realized that I wanted to cultivate a poetic ‘voice’ to more accurately convey the underlying creative life force that drives all areas of my life and is helping me to survive. I hope through this process to inspire others in higher education to take stock of their efforts, especially in the face of major changes in their lives and the dance field more generally.