Amy Swanson

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Amy Swanson

Assistant Professor of Theater

Department/Office Information

Theater
Charles Dana Arts Center
  • T 8:30am - 11:30am (Charles Dana Arts Center)

Contact

(315) 228-7940

Amy Swanson (she/her/hers) is Assistant Professor of Dance at Colgate University.  Her research aims to amplify the critical work of artists from formerly colonized locations while fleshing out the transnational entanglements that sustain contemporary dance. Her current book project examines queer aesthetics in contemporary dance in Senegal vis-à-vis artists' embeddedness in both local and transnational artistic milieus. Her writing has appeared in Dance Research Journal, Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, and Critical African Studies. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2022) and a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2015). She previously taught at Northwestern University, where she received her M.A. and Ph.D. She holds a B.F.A. in dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

PhD, Interdisciplinary PhD in Theater and Drama, Northwestern University (2019)

MA, Theater and Drama, Northwestern University (2015)

BFA, Dance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008)

Global contemporary dance, contemporary African dance, queer African studies, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, queer theory

  • "Ambiguous Masculinities: Gender and Sexual Transgression in Contemporary Dance Works by Senegalese Men," Dance Research Journal (2019)
  • "Codifying African Dance: The Germaine Acogny Technique and Antinomies of Postcolonial Cultural Production," Critical African Studies (2019)
  • "Choreographing the Individual: Andréya Ouamba's Contemporary (African) Dance Approach," Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies (2016)
  • Book and Performance Reviews:
  • Babacar M'Baye and Besi Brillian Mujonja (eds), Gender and Sexuality in Senegalese Societies: Critical Perspectives and Methods in Sexualities (2021)
  • Sabine Sörgel, Contemporary African Dance Theater: Whiteness, Phenomenology, and the Gaze in Dance Research Journal (2020)
  • Dorothée Munyaneza, Samedi Détente, in Theatre Journal (2016)

S'enfuir, Colgate University (2022)

Bound, Northwestern University (2015)

Me and My Space, co-choreographed with Momar Ndiaye, Dakar and Chicago (2012-2014)

National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2022)

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship (2015)

Introduction to Dance Studies (THEA 270)

Introduction to Contemporary Dance (THEA 271)

Contemporary Dance in Performance (THEA 371)

Senegal (CORE 147C/FSEM 117A)