Office Location:
Specialization:
Dance Studies | Performance Studies | Curatorial Practice
Education:
B.A. Swarthmore College - History, Art History
M.A. New York University, Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts
Ph.D. New York University, Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts
Bio:
Ninotchka Bennahum, Professor of Theater and Dance and Graduate Advisor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a dance and performance studies scholar and museum curator. As a historian of dance, my work centers around a politics of inclusion with a focus on visuality and public culture. My current research, curation, and pedagogy focus on the political and philosophical natureof artistic radicalism, specifically how 20th century geopolitical conflict defined contemporaneity in contemporary and neoclassical dance. Books and co-edited collections include: Antonia Mercé, ‘La Argentina: Flamenco & the Spanish Avant-Garde and Carmen, a Gypsy Geography, a transhistorical study of the Gitana in Middle Eastern and Spanish cultural history, The Living Dance: A Global Anthology of Essays on Movement & Culture, coedited with Distinguished Professor Judith Chazin-Bennahum (mom), and Flamenco on the Global Stage: Theoretical, Historical and Critical Perspectives. Co-curated, bi-coastal exhibitions|books include: Transformation & Continuance: Jennifer Muller & the Re-Shaping of American Modern Dance, 1959 – Present; 100 Years of Flamenco on the New York Stage; Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955 – 1972; and Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance, 1900 – 1955. In 2019, she curated a permanent exhibition for the Department of Dance at UW-Madison entitled Radical Pedagogy: Margaret H’Doubler, Anna Halprin, and American Dance, 1916 – Present. A final co-curated (with Jessica Friedman) exhibition, Dance to Belong: 150 Years of Dance History at 92NY, is on view at 92NY, March 12, 2024 through August 2025. See also “Carmelita Maracci’s Latine Classicism,” Dance Index Fall 2024. The resident dance scholar for American Ballet Theatre from 1996 to 2012, she is completing a history of the company: Exile and Modernity: American Ballet Theatre in the Shadow of War.
Projects:
Exhibitions and Exhibition Books
Dance to Belong: A History of Dance at 92NY
On View: March 12, 2024 - August 31, 2025
https://www.92ny.org/culture-arts/school-of-the-arts/art-center/gallery-...
https://www.thincdesign.com/project/dance-to-belong
Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance, 1900 - 1955.
On View in the Shelby Cullom Davis Museum, NYPL - Lincoln Center: June 8, 2023 - March 16, 2024
https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/bordercrossings
Collaboration with Professor Emeritus Bruce Robertson
Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance, 1900 - 1955.
On View at the Art, Design, & Architecture Museum, UCSB: January 25 - May 5, 2024 - sole curation
Visual Collaboration with Creative Installation Artist Arturo Soto
Border Crossings in Dance Education
On View in the PAT Gallery, Theater & Dance. January 25, 2024 - May 2025
Visual collaboration with Professor of Art Emerita KIm Yasuda and Design Artist Kelly Doe
Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, & Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955 - 1972
On View at the Art, Design, & Architecture Museum, UCSB: January 14 - April 30, 2017
Collaboration with Bruce Robertson and Wendy Perron
https://www.museum.ucsb.edu/news/feature/537
https://www.independent.com/2017/01/26/radical-bodies-ucsbs-adm/
Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, & Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955 - 1972
On View in the Vicent Astor Gallery, NYPL - Lincoln Center: May 24 - September 16, 2017
Co-curation with Bruce Robertson and Wendy Perron
Radical Bodies Review Brooklyn Rail
Radical Bodies Review New York Times
Radical Bodies Symposium Review
Radical Bodies the Architects' Newspaper
Radical Pedagogy: Margaret H'Doubler, Anna Halprin, and American Dance 1916 - Present
Permanent installation at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, opening: October 11, 2019 Exhibition - Sole Curation
Jennifer Muller and the Reshaping of American Modern Dance, 1944 - Present
On View in the HSSB Dance Studio Theataer, UCSB, April 2011
https://ihc.ucsb.edu/transformation-and-continuance/
Book: Transformation and Continuance: Jennifer Muller and the Reshaping of American Modern Dance, 1944 - Present
Video Interviews and Public Humanities Talks
Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance
Temple University Institute for Dance Scholarship
Current Books and Publications
Exile and Modernity: American Ballet Theatre in the Shadow of War - Book Manuscript
Carmelita Maracci's Neoclassicism - Book Manuscript in process
The Colloquium in Dance | Theater | Performance Studies
2011 - Present
2025 - 2026 Artists
Winter Quarter 2026
Emily Wilcox, Linda Murray, Wind Woods
Dance Research Fellowships
The Center for Ballet and the Arts, NYU
Gagosian Quarterly - Interview with Mark Franko
Publications:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/21/arts/dance/border-crossings-new-york-...
https://www.museum.ucsb.edu/news/feature/1100
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520293366/radical-bodies
https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/radical-bodies-anna-halprin-simo...
https://brooklynrail.org/2017/09/artseen/Radical-Bodies-Anna-Halprin-Sim...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/arts/dance/radical-bodies-anna-halpri...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/arts/review-radical-bodies-the-end-of...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/arts/dance/a-banned-dance-from-anna-h...
Nj.com article, "Flamenco's fiery history in New York"
The New York Times article, "A Spanish Dance on American Shores - ‘100 Years of Flamenco in New York,’ at Public Library"
The New Yorker Critic's Notebook article, "A Gypsy in Their Soul"
Bennahum's book, Carmen, A Gypsy Geography
Courses:
Graduate Seminars
THTR 252DP: Introduction to Critical Dance Studies, Winter 2026
THTR 254: The Performance of Physicality
THTR 251DP: Border Crossings: the Making of American Modern Dance
THTR 251: Dancing the Diaspora: Tracing the Africanist Presence in Afro-Caribbean and American Worlds
THTR 220: Corporealities: Theories of the Body in Dance History
THTR: Special Topics: Performance and Diaspora
Undergraduate courses - Fulfill GE Writing Requirements
Dance 36: Histories of Modern Dance & Contemporary Performance
DAN 145a: George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet, 1904 – Present
DAN 145b: Ballet in Global Perspectives: Critical Topics in Dance History
DAN 145c: Dancing the Diaspora: Dances of the Afro-Caribbean and American Worlds
DAN145e: Dance Modernism: Cubism, Surrealism and the Euro-American Avant- Garde, 1905 – 1939
DAN 145W: Postmodernism in Dance: Bodies of Social Protest: Art, Dance & Film, 1955 – 1975
DAN 145h: Flamenco and the Afro-Roma Presence in Spanish History