About BPT

The Black Performance Theory (BPT) working group is a collective of scholars working on the theory, history, and practice of African Diasporic expressive cultures. The primary mission of BPT is to provide intellectual and community support to Assistant Professors as they move through the challenges of academic life. The experience of writing and performing theory links scholars and scholar/performers in unique modalities of conversation, debate, and collaboration. Bringing together diverse disciplinary perspectives provides an unbounded look at performative commonalities/divergences of the African Diaspora, including, but not limited to, music, dance, feminist strategies, spirituality, oratory, performance art, architecture and public space theory, racial formation, theatre, historiography, spoken word, and queer cultures. We strive for vibrant critical discussions of methodologies, paradigms, and approaches to theorizing Black performance.

At each meeting, a small cadre of scholars and practitioners share work in experimental sessions that have included dance performances, play readings, poetry and solo performance work, film screenings, flash animation presentations, and the creation of group improvisations. A space for active witnessing allows audience members to engage productively with participants' contributions. The group functions as a site for intellectual creativity, for communal consideration of foundational concepts in performance theory, and as a much-needed opening into the space of performance discourse as it might be inflected Black.

This fifteenth invitation-based convening of BPT elaborates an exciting tradition of innovation:

“Race and Representation,” organized and hosted by Richard Green, Duke University, 1998
“African American Performativity,” Thomas DeFrantz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000
“Black Performance Theory: Theorizing as if Race Matters,” DeFrantz and Green, Stanford University, 2002
“De/Cipherin' Practices,” Anna B. Scott and DeFrantz, UC Riverside, 2003
“Contingent Geographies of Blackness” Ananya Chatterjea and DeFrantz, University of Minnesota, 2004
“Crossroads in Global Performance,” Annemarie Bean and DeFrantz, Williams College, 2006
“Black Performance Theory,” E. Patrick Johnson and DeFrantz, Northwestern University, 2007
“Afrosonics: Grammars of Black Sound,” Daphne Brooks and DeFrantz, co-sponsored by the Afro-American Cultural Center, African American Studies and the World Performance Project, Yale University, 2009
“Hemispheres and Souths,” Stephanie Batiste and DeFrantz, University of California at Santa Barbara, 2011
“Black Gold/The Black Body in Performance,” Omi Osun Joni L. Jones and DeFrantz, University of Texas at Austin, 2013
“How Can We Work it Out: Black Performance between Death and Life,” Awam Ampka, Tavia Nyong’o, Jason King, Shanté Paradigm Small and DeFrantz, New York University, 2015
“Black Matters,” Jeffery Q. McCune at Washington University, 2017
“Borders of Blackness,” Grisha Coleman, Marlon Bailey, and Marcus White at Arizona State University, 2019
“Choreographing in Black”, Melissa Blanco Borelli and Thomas F. DeFrantz, 2023

Since 2000, each event has received funding and administrative support from Slippage: Performance | Culture | Technology, the research group founded by DeFrantz at MIT, and now in residence at Northwestern University.