Corcoran
Anna Kimmel
Dance
Anna Jayne Kimmel is a performance studies scholar invested in the intersection of legal humanities 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, Olivier Tarpaga, and Susan Marshall, amongst others. In 2019, she devised SOLI, an evening-length dance that centered on experiences from death row and remains committed to decarceral efforts. Kimmel holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Stanford University in Performance Studies, with minors in Anthropology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her scholarship appears in Dance Research Journal, Performance Research, Lateral, The Drama Review (TDR), and The Brooklyn Rail, as well as various edited volumes. She serves on the board of Performance Studies International and is an Associate Editor for Performance Research.
Jodi Kanter
Professor of Theatre
Theatre & Dance
As a scholar, Jodi has been trained to apply the theoretical lens of performance to everyday practices and so, while her methodology is consistent, the subjects of her work vary wildly—from, for example, end-of-life health care to contemporary dramatic literature to the American Presidency. As an artist, her focus is on strengthening communities through theatrical improvisation, oral history collection, writing, and performance. To this end, over the last twenty-five years, she has created dozens of workshops and performances in a wide variety of settings, including prisons, hospices, libraries, and community centers. She is a trained facilitator of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed.
Leslie Jacobson
Professor Emerita of Theatre and Dance
Department of Theatre and Dance
Leslie Jacobson is the Founding Artistic Director of Horizons Theatre, established in 1977, and the “longest-running” women’s theatre still producing in the U.S. Under her leadership, Horizons has introduced Washington audiences to over 60 new plays and playwrights through fully staged productions, and another 50 through public staged readings over the years. The Women’s Committee of the Dramatists Guild gave Horizons a special award for its outstanding work in producing plays by women playwrights. Jacobson has written and produced over a dozen of her own scripts at Horizons and around the country over the years. She graduated cum laude with a degree in Theatre, from Northwestern University; and with a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Boston University’s School for the Arts. Jacobson served as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at The George Washington University for 13 years, from 1995 to 2008. As Chair, she inaugurated a Women’s Leadership Program in Women and International Culture, located on the Mount Vernon Campus of GW, for Freshmen interested in discovering the ways that women create art differently from men.