Tara Aisha Willis, Ph.D., is a dancer, writer, and curator. She is Curator-in-Residence, Dance at The Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), and a 2024-25 Getty Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in the African American Art History Initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and recently served as Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at University of Chicago (2022-24), and as Curator of Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2017–2023).
She has been an editorial collective member of Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory since 2013. She served as co-managing editor of TDR/The Drama Review, and was co-editor of both a special issue of The Black Scholar with Thomas F. DeFrantz and the performance writing project, Marking the Occasion (Wendy's Subway, 2021) with Jaime Shearn Coan.
