Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance aims to capture the innovations women have made to the performing arts in their historical, geographical, and disciplinary diversity. The definitions of both “performance” and “woman” are capacious. The former includes all forms of theatre, dance, opera, performance art, and solo performance. The latter includes cisgender, women-identified, trans, and femme bodies. Our definition of “woman” is also undergirded by Black, Asian, Latinx, Indigenous, and other intersectional feminisms alongside queer theories which trouble the gender construct/binary. Innovation is defined by the context in which it happens. It can be something that disrupts or breaks from conventions; it can create new methods (forms, styles, aesthetics, etc.); it can be something that establishes a strong influence in the development of the field. This series seeks to broaden, celebrate, and recover historical awareness of these performance-based artmakers and their contributions; as such, it showcases innovative, intersectional feminist historiographical approaches along with a history of women’s innovation in the field.

The series will consist of four volumes; each volume will focus on processes and practices surrounding roles, broadly conceived. The set will be organized as such: Vol. 1: Performers; Vol. 2: Creators; Vol. 3: Designers & Crafters; and Vol. 4: Leaders. Each volume will showcase how historiographical form and content are interrelated through a framework that seeks to explore relationships across time and space rather than linear narratives that privilege cause and effect. The series editors are Wendy Arons (Carnegie Mellon University), Melissa Blanco Borelli (Northwestern University), and Elizabeth W. Son (Northwestern University).

Women’s Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance Advisory Board

Nobuko Anan

Kansai University, Japan

Kim Marra

University of Iowa, USA

Anita Gonzalez

Georgetown University, USA

Rachel Hann

Northumbria University, UK

Kim Solga

Western University, Canada

Tracy Davis

Northwestern University, USA

Bishnupriya Dutt

Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Soyica Diggs Colbert

Georgetown University, USA

Patricia Herrera

University of Richmond, USA