Bevy of Guests

Carlee Sachs-Krook (she/they) is an educator, researcher, and writer working in the field of dance. She holds a BFA in dance from Sam Houston State University and an MA in American Dance Studies from Florida State University. Drawing on their embodied experience as a mover and a groover in popular and concert dance contexts, their praxis explores how popular dance and dance in popular culture can serve as pedagogical tools for advancing liberation. Carlee currently resides in Nashville where she teaches in the Theatre and Dance Department at Austin Peay State University.  ​​​​​​​

​

​

​

​

Elizabeth June Bergman is a dancer, interdisciplinary scholar, and educator based in Philadelphia. She holds a PhD in Dance Studies from Temple University and an MFA from The University of Iowa. Her body of creative work includes choreography for the stage and non-traditional sites, screendance, improvisational performance, and written scholarship on popular and commercial dance. Her research has been published in Dance Research Journal, Dance Chronicle, and the anthology Dance in US Popular Culture. Elizabeth has held various faculty positions at Muhlenberg College, Temple University, Bryn Mawr College, Point Park University, The University of Iowa, and serves as an Associate Editor for Dance Chronicle. ​​​​

Madeline Aldana-Gray is mover, maker, and educator. She is an MFA candidate in the FSU School of Dance. Originally from Southeast Louisiana, she is interested in all things sparkly, shiny, and glittery. Madeline is currently researching Catholic aesthetics to create magical, otherworldly experiences for dancers and audiences.​​

​

​

​

​

​​​

​

​

​

​

​

​​

​​​​​​​​​​​​

Hannah Schwadron, MFA, PhD, is Associate Professor of Dance at Florida State University, where she teaches the cultural politics of performance and directs the Arts in NYC semester program. Material for this podcast draws on her first book, The Case of the Sexy Jewess: Dance, Gender, and Jewish Joke-work in US Pop Culture (Oxford University Press, 2018), which won the de la Torre Bueno award for first book. This research set the stage for her coedited volume with Marta E. Savigliano, Funny Moves: Dance Humor Politics (OUP, 2025) and its ten original essays from Pakistan, Trinidad, Germany, Argentina, the United States, and the Mexico/US border region. ​

Trent is a dance artist, currently operating as the Associate Director for Arkansas Festival Ballet. He toured stateside, and internationally with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, where he was also featured in The New York Times. He holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and a MFA in Performance and Choreography from Florida State University. He has danced with The Tallahassee Ballet and served as a guest artist for several ballet institutions. He has worked extensively as an educator for dance, and he is a certified Pilates and Progressing Ballet Technique teacher. ​​​​​​

Kirill Smolkin is a PhD candidate at Heidelberg University, Germany. In 2022 he graduated summa cum laude in Musicology at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Russia. He gained professional experience as an editor and co-author of the online encyclopedia on Tchaikovsky directed by SIAS, Moscow. His current PhD project, funded by German Academic Exchange Service and supervised by Christoph Flamm, is devoted to the reception of Tchaikovsky’s work in subsequent classical music and mass culture. His recent publications include “Swan Lake Horror” (19th-Century Music) and “Tchaikovsky’s Pop Scores” (Die Tonkunst). His other research interests include interdisciplinary music studies, film music, and music and politics. ​​​

A.M. Darke is an artist and Associate Professor of Creative Technologies, Games, and New Media at UC Santa Cruz. Through critical games and experimental media, Darke examines power and oppression through a social and technocultural lens. She has won multiple awards for her creative practice in the arts, as well as for her contributions to the simulation of afro-textured hair in computer graphics. Darke is the founder of the Open Source Afro Hair Library, a 3D platform that serves as a living archive of Black hair and digital culture. 

​

Darke has a BA in Design and an MFA in Media Arts, both from UCLA. Her work has been widely exhibited at festivals and galleries around the world, and featured in a variety of publications, such as The Guardian, The Washington Post, NPR, and The New York Times. ​

Andrew Miragliotta is the creative force behind Lucha Krewe, a New Orleans dance and philanthropy club where the masking traditions of Mardi Gras collide with those of Mexican lucha libre. As Lead Choreographer, Andrew draws on an extensive background in music, martial arts, and dance to translate the spirit of professional wrestling into synchronized street performance. By weaving the rhythms of cumbia, candombe, and other Latin genres with the iconic theatrics, athleticism, and charisma of luchadores, Andrew creates a uniquely intercultural tribute that celebrates the shared spectacle of the parade and the ring. ​​​​​​​​

Dr. Bhumi B Patel (she/they) is a queer-of-color scholar-artist-educator and director of pateldanceworks. Bhumi’s research on queer decoloniality and improvisation intersects with performance-making as a way of tracing the deep connections of past, present, future to build communities of nourishment and care. Bhumi earned a PhD in Dance Studies from The Ohio State University, an MFA in Dance from Mills College, and an MA in American Dance Studies from Florida State University. Bhumi serves as Dance Studies Association Treasurer, is an Editorial Assistant for Choreographic Practices and Dance Research Journal, and is committed to innovating through embodied, liberatory research. ​​​​

​​

​

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Beccy McCray's practice explores the intersections of art, activism and ecology, creating spaces for collective imagining. Rooted in collaboration, she works with communities, scientists, mystics and cultural institutions to explore relationships between people, place and the more-than-human world. Her process-led, site-responsive work draws on ecological research, folk culture and lived experience to create space for interspecies connection and gently unravel harmful narratives of separation.

​

From 2007–2020 she co-founded Crafternoon Tea Club, a collective exploring community art and DIY craft. She is also a founding member of Don’t Frack With Sussex. Alongside her artistic practice, Beccy works as a Creative and Strategist with organisations including Greenpeace, The Big Plastic Count, 350.org, HTC Vive Arts, Channel 4 and Dazed Media.​​​​​

Known to his students as Chef Sean, Dr. Kai-Sean Lee is an assistant professor who has previously pursued a career in pastry, culinary, and specialty coffee.  As a researcher, Sean's scholarly interests rest at the crossroads of aesthetics and gastronomy.  In simpler terms, he studies the nature of good cooking, good eating, and what “good” means to different people. On a fun note, Sean identifies as a w(h)ine enthusiast, meaning he loves to drink wine and whine about life. 

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​

Clare Parfitt is an interdisciplinary dance scholar working between popular dance studies, memory studies and Atlantic studies. She is currently Research and Knowledge Exchange Co-ordinator at The Place - London Contemporary Dance School and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University. Clare co-founded PoP Moves, an international popular dance research network, and serves as a Director of PoP Moves CIC. She is the editor of Cultural Memory and Popular Dance: Dancing to Remember, Dancing to Forget (Palgrave, 2021) and her forthcoming monograph is provisionally titled The Kinetics of Memory: Popular Dance between France and the Atlantic World (Oxford University Press). ​