Anna Kimmel

Anna Jayne Kimmel is a performance studies scholar invested in the intersection of legal and dance studies, with particular attention to francophone histories and moments of public assembly. As a dancer, Kimmel has performed the works of: Ohad Naharin, Trisha Brown, John Jasperse, Francesca Harper, Rebecca Lazier, Olivier Tarpaga, Marjani Forte, Susan Marshall, Loni Landon, and Christopher Ralph, amongst others. At Stanford, she devised SOLI, an evening length dance which centered experiences from death row. She is a Teaching Fellow in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and has lectured at Santa Clara University in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Kimmel holds an AB from Princeton University in French Studies with certificates in African Studies and Dance. Her writing appears in Performance Research, Lateral, The Drama Review (TDR), Dance Research Journal and The Brooklyn Rail. She currently serves on the board to Performance Studies international and as Reviews Editor of Performance Research.

Against legal studies’ colonial centering of linguistic and rhetorical analysis as dominant knowledge, my research sutures dance studies—kinesthetic awareness, somatic memory, and performative potential—to the legal humanities to recuperate the agency of constituent power, especially in moments of public protest. Motivated by figures of the protesting ballerina that circulate internationally, case-studies across Algeria, France and the United States inform this work. Such triangulation reflects a commitment to postcolonial theory, francophone culture, and Arab and African studies.