Professor Kate Elswit and colleagues presented with the Gertrude Lippincott Award

On 31 July 2023, Professor Kate Elswit (Professor of Performance and Technology) was presented with the Gertrude Lippincott Award for best English-language article in dance in 2022, together with her co-author Harmony Bench (The Ohio State University).  

The open access article “Visceral Data for Dance Histories: Katherine Dunham’s People, Places, and Pieces” was produced as part of the AHRC-funded project Dunham’s Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry. The article published in The Drama Review (TDR). This years Lippincott award was Elswit’s second, the first being for a 2009 article also in TDR. 

The Dance Studies Association, who presents the annual award, described the essay:

“Harmony Bench and Kate Elswit’s groundbreaking work demonstrates how critical digital methods, data analysis, and visualization can reinvigorate and reshape dance history.” 

Further support was provided by Dunham’s Data postdoctoral fellows Dr. Tia-Monique Uzor (now Lecturer, Contemporary African and Caribbean Diasporic Performance at Central) and Antonio Jimenez-Mavillard. 

On the award, Professor Kate Elswit said: 

“We are absolutely delighted to receive this recognition from the Dance Studies Association for the culminating essay from Dunham’s Data.” 

For more information about the project, please visit the Dunham Data website.