Tara Aisha Willis, Ph.D. is a dance artist, dramaturg, independent curator, and writer, and currently a Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. She served six years as Curator of Performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and previously programmed at Movement Research. After receiving the NYU-Wide Outstanding Dissertation Award, her first monograph in progress, Indescribable Moves: Improvised Experiments in Dancing Blackness, is supported by Dance Studies Association’s First-Time Author Mentorship Award. Select writings appear in publications by CARA, Getty Research Institute, Danspace, Center for Book Arts, The Black Scholar, Brooklyn Rail, Movement Research Performance Journal, Wendy's Subway, and forthcoming from University of Illinois and Soberscove Presses. Willis's choreography has been shown at/supported by Movement Research, CPR, Links Hall, UofI Urbana-Champagne Interseminars, AUNTS, BAX, Wild Project, Dixon Place, Lion’s Jaw Festival, Danspace Project Draftwork, Roulette, Ragdale Foundation, Harris Theatre for Music & Dance, and Chez Bushwick. She performed in Will Rawls’s collaboration with Claudia Rankine from 2017-2021 and the 2016 “Bessie” Award-winning performance by The Skeleton Architecture.