Anna Jayne Kimmel is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at Stanford University pursing a minor in Anthropology and graduate certificate in African Studies, with an emphasis in dance, memory, and public performance as politics. Her current research intersects critical dance studies and crowd theory, to analyze the resulting representations of race, national identity, and democratic affect. As a dancer, Kimmel has performed the works of: Ohad Naharin, Trisha Brown, John Jaspers, Francesca Harper, Rebecca Lazier, Olivier Tarpaga, Marjani Forte, Susan Marshall, Loni Landon, and Christopher Ralph, amongst others.  She is the graduate coordinator of the Arts and Justice workshop at the Stanford Humanities Center, and lecturer at Santa Clara University in the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Kimmel holds an AB from Princeton University in French Studies with certificates in African Studies and Dance. Her writing appears in Performance Research, with reviews published in The Drama Review (TDR) and Dance Research Journal. She currently serves on the Future Advisory Board to Performance Studies international, and as the reviews editor of Performance Research.

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