Anita Gonzalez

Anita Gonzalez (Ph.D) is a Professor of Theatre and Chair of Dance at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She directs, devises and writes dance theatre works internationally, leading artists and students in collaborative venture in Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom and other locales .Her performance and production work ranges from founding the Anishinaaabe Theatre Exchange in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to writing musical theatre works for the stage (Home of my Ancestors , Ayanna Kelly, and Ybor City). She choreographs dance theatre work about African American and Latinx Histories (The Living Lakes and Zora on My Mind) using gesture and song to explore human vulnerability. 

Gonzalez has authored two books Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (2010) and Jarocho’s Soul (2005) that reveal the influence of African people and their cultural productions on Mexico. She also co-edited the volume Black Performance Theory (Duke University Press 2013). Her essays about multi-cultural and international performance appear in several edited collections including Black Acting Methods (Luckett), The Community Performance Reader (Kuppers), Festive Devils (Riggio, Segura, and Vignola) and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre (George-Graves, 2015). She has published articles in the Radical History Review, Modern Drama, Performance Research International, and Dance Research Journal.