Dr Danielle A. D. Howard joins AMPD as an assistant professor in the Department of Theatre. She recently taught within the University of California-Los Angeles’ School of Theater, Film and Television before coming to York University. Dr. Howard holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from UCLA and writes at the intersections of race, gender, performance, visual and sonic culture. She is currently working on a manuscript titled Making Moves: Race, Basketball, and Embodied Resistance that spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The project foregrounds Black basketball players’ virtuosic and improvisational movements as oriented towards a kinetic knowledge of freedom and akin to contemporaneous jazz aesthetics. Other recent research includes the speculative lives of nineteenth and twentieth-century Black performers. Dr. Howard’s article, “The (Afro) Future of Henry Box Brown: His-story of Escape(s) through Time and Space” won TDR’s (The Drama Review) Graduate Student Essay Contest Award and appears in their September 2021 issue.
Originally from the United States with training in music, dance, and theatre, Howard’s move to Toronto inspires her continued pursuit of her artistic and intellectual curiosity by engaging art-based research practices. She is invested in improving the health and resilience of her communities through their participation in the collective making of artistic expressions with different forms of embodied art. As a certified Social-Emotional Arts (SEA) Facilitator, she hopes to organize community programs that use dance, music, and theatre to facilitate healing, inner peace, and self-expression as well as inform the public on various topics.
Research keywords: Black performance; embodiment; gender; improvisation; movement; popular culture; race; sport