Andrea Harris
Associate Professor
(608) 263-2929
139A Lathrop Hall
1050 University Ave
Madison, WI 53706-1304
Andrea Harris has been a faculty member in the UW-Madison Dance Department since 2009. She teaches courses in dance history, dance studies, and movement analysis.
Andrea is the author of Making Ballet American: Modernism Before and Beyond Balanchine (Oxford University Press, 2017), named a 2018 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. She is also the editor of Before, Between, Beyond: Three Decades of Dance Writing, the most recent collection of the writings of the dance historian Sally Banes. Andrea’s essays on American dance history appear in journals including Dance Chronicle, Discourses in Dance, and Performing Arts Resources, as well as chapters in edited volumes. Her article “Sur la Pointe on the Prairie: Giuseppina Morlacchi and the Urban Problem in the Frontier Melodrama” (Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 2016) received the Honorable Mention for the Gertrude Lippincott Award, given by the Society of Dance History Scholars for the best English language article on dance published that year.
Andrea’s current book project explores the history of therapeutic modern dance and the evolution of dance/movement therapy from the turn of the twentieth century. Her performance credits include Li Chiao-Ping Dance and the Martha Graham Dance Company.
Education
- Graduate Laban Certificate in Movement Analysis , Columbia College, 2011
- PhD Theatre Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005
- MFA Modern Dance, Texas Christian University, 1997
Select Publications
- Harris, A. (2017). Making Ballet American: Modernism Before and Beyond Balanchine. Oxford University Press Online Publication/Abstract.
- Harris, A. (2016). Hoop Skirts and Modernism: Dance and Social Change at The Arts Club. One Hundred Years of The Arts Club of Chicago University of Chicago Press.
- Harris, A. (2015). Sur la pointe on the prairie: Giuseppina Morlacchi and the Urban Problem in the Frontier Melodrama. Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 27(1) Online Publication/Abstract.
- Harris, A. (2012). Gendered Discourses in American Ballet at Mid-Century: Ruth Page on the Periphery. Dance Chronicle, 35(1)
- Harris, A., & Gaborik, P. (2011). From Italy to Russia and the US: ‘Fascist’ Futurism and Balanchine’s ‘American’ Ballet. Mike Sell (Ed.), Avant-Garde Performance and Material Exchange: Vectors of the Radical Palgrave Macmillan.
- Banes, S., & Harris, A. (2007). Before, Between, Beyond: Three Decades of Dance Writing. University of Wisconsin Press Online Publication/Abstract.
Select Presentations
- Harris, A. (2019, November). "No longer does the body stand there so dumb and inadequate”: Dance Therapy and the Performative Body, from Weimar Body Culture to the New York Cultural Front. presented at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Madison, WI.
- Harris, A. (2018, July). Dance Therapy: Bridging Art and Science Since (about) 1936. Invited Talk presented at the Promoting Human Betterment Through the Arts and Humanities Conference, Madison, WI.
- Harris, A. (2017, October). Blanche Evan and the Passage of Radical Dance into Dance Therapy. Paper presented at the Dance Studies Association Annual Conference, Columbus, OH.
- Harris, A. (2017, August). Confronting Fascism. Paper presented at the Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- Harris, A. (2017, August). Cross-Cultural Dance Performances. Paper presented at the Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
- Harris, A. (2017, April). Dance at The Arts Club, 1917-1931: Women, Performance, and Identity in the Progressive Era. Invited Talk presented at the The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
- Harris, A. (2016, March). All right / You want a STYLE out of America”: Transnationalism and the Remaking of American Ballet in the 1930s. Invited Talk presented at the Center for the Humanities, Madison, WI.
- Harris, A. (2012, November). ’More than a Weapon’: Lincoln Kirstein’s Revolutionary American Ballet. Paper presented at the American Society for Theatre Research Annual Conference, Nashville, TN.
- Harris, A. (2011, June). Lincoln Kirstein and the Production of American Ballet History. Paper presented at the Society of Dance History Scholars Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada.
Select Awards and Honors
- Vilas Associate Award, UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Research and Graduate Education, 2019
- Summer Humanities Research Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities, UW-Madison, 2020
- Resident Faculty Fellow, Institute for Research in the Humanities, UW-Madison, (2019, 2020)
- Emily Mead Baldwin Award, Division of the Arts at UW Madison, 2018
- Outstanding Academic Title for Making Ballet American: Modernism Before and Beyond Balanchine, CHOICE, 2018
- Honorable Mention for Gertrude Lippincott Award, Society of Dance History Scholars, 2016
- First Book Award, UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, 2014