Person
Biography
Clare Croft is a historian, theorist, and dramaturg, working at the intersection of dance studies and performance studies. She specializes in 20th and 21st century American dance, cultural policy, feminist and queer theory, and critical race theory. In all of these areas, Croft considers how dance is a way of thinking and a mode for asking questions. What does it mean to acknowledge that people have bodies and that they use their bodies to make meaning, create community, and critique social structures?
Croft's writing about dance has appeared in Dance Research Journal, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Topics, and is forthcoming inDance Chronicle. From 2002-2005, Croft was a regular contributor toThe Washington Post, and from 2005-2010, she covered dance, as well as theatre and musical theatre, for the Austin American-Statesman. Her performance criticism has appeared in other popular press venues, including The Baltimore Sun, Dance Magazine, andThe Houston Chronicle.
At the University of Michigan, Croft teaches courses in the BFA and MFA dance programs, as well as in the BFA interarts program.Croft holds a PhD in theatre history and criticism with an emphasis in Performance as Public Practice from the University of Texas-Austin and an MA in performance studies from New York University. From 2010-2013, Croft was a postdoctoral scholar in the University of Michigan's Society of Fellows.
Source of Biography
http://www.music.umich.edu/faculty_staff/bio.php?u=chcroft