Publishing

Academic and poetic dance-writing projects based in the belief that theorization happens in performance as much as on the page, and performing happens on the page through theory; that because of the body, Black studies and dance studies need each other. Attending to how Black experiments in dance and performance show up in print publication.

The cover of the exhibition catalogue, "Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures" has a black and white image of Cummings performing in a long white skirt and apron, with a cloth flying in her hands.

Blondell Cummings: Dance as Moving Pictures

Getty Research Institute’s Kristin Juarez, Rebecca Peabody, and Glenn Phillips at Art + Practice, Los Angeles

The cover of "Marking the Occasion" has the title in a very large font over an image of feet and legs touching on a studio floor, in pale yellow and teal gradient.

Marking the Occasion

Wendy’s Subway, 2020

Edited by Jaime Shearn Coan and Tara Aisha Willis

The cover image is of David Thomson performing in a church sanctuary with sculptural objects surrounding him as he stands with arms up high wearing a white tunic and black bondage mask.

“Black Moves: New Research in Black Dance Studies”

The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research, Vol 46, Issue 1, 2016

Co-editor with Thomas F. DeFrantz

UPCOMING

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UPCOMING *

In the Horizontal Plane: taisha paggett performance works

Co-Author with taisha paggett and Jaime Shearn Coan, Soberscove Pres, 2024

“(Re)placing ‘X’: Poonie Dodson in Chicago, ca. 1985”

Dancing on the Third Coast: Chicago Dance History, edited by Susan Manning and Lizzie Leopold, University of Illinois Press, forthcoming 2023

Indescribable Moves: Improvised Experiments in Dancing Blackness

First monograph in development

ADDITIONAL WORKS

Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books

David Senior, Sur Rodney (Sur), Kayleigh Perkov, and Tara Aisha Willis, Edited by Megan Liberty

“Steffani Jemison’s A Rock, A River, A Street”

Tara A. Willis, The Brooklyn Rail

performance score built with undated performance notes

Imagined Theatres, Issue 05: Curating, 2020

Marking the Occasion

Wendy’s Subway, 2020 Edited by Jaime Shearn Coan and Tara Aisha Willis

A Litany on An/notations

Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, Volume 23, Issue 4-5: On Reflection - Turning 100, 2018

Durational Performance of a Day for November 3rd, 2020

1000 Scores: Pieces for Here, Now, and Later, Rimini Protokoll, 2020

Black Moves: New Research in Black Dance Studies

The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research, Volume 46, Issue 1, 2016, Co-editor with Thomas F. DeFrantz

Introduction (Co-author with Thomas F. DeFrantz)

Stumbling into Place: Seeing Blackness in David Thomson’s Choreographies of Ambiguity (Author)

On Making Issue 46.1, with Tara A. Willis and Thomas F. DeFrantz (Conversation)

Photo Credits: Publishing hero image by Tara Aisha Willis

Image Description: A wall of books with art and tchotchkes tucked into the shelves. The books span from Black studies to dance theory to performance studies to art history.

Where We Land, Where We Fly, October 2016–2017,” Dancing Platform Praying Grounds: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance

Danspace Project Platform 2018, Edited by Reggie Wilson, Lydia Bell, and Kristin Juarez

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