Maura Keefe

Maura Keefe is a contemporary dance historian. She is a scholar in residence at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, where she writes about, lectures on, and interviews artists from around the world. Keefe has also given lectures and led audience programs nationally at places such as Princeton University, UCLA, the Goethe Institut (Los Angeles), the Kennedy Center, New York Live Arts, the Joyce Theatre, and New York’s City Center, and internationally for the Festival Internacional Danza Extremadura in Monterrey, Mexico. Based on those interactions with dancers and choreographers, she has published essays on women in dance, contemporary dance forms, and dance cultures. Other research interests include the relationships between dance and sports, with essays published on subjects such as endzone dancing, baseball as structured improvisation, and the Harlem Globetrotters.

Keefe served as the director of the School from 2020 to 2024. Prior to coming to Maryland as associate director in 2016, Keefe was Chair of the Department of Dance at SUNY Brockport and was on the dance faculty at Ohio University. 

Education/Training:

• Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory, University of California, Riverside
• M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance, Smith College
• B.A. in Dance and English, William Smith College

Areas of Specialization/Interest:

• Contemporary Dance History and Culture
• Choreography
• Dance Writing
• Dance Theories
• Audience Engagement for Dance
• Public Humanities in the Arts

Representative Publications

“The Choreography of Basketball as Art and Sport” Dancing the African Diaspora: Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies series. Guest Editors: Drs. Thomas DeFrantz (Duke University) and Takiyah Nur Amin (University of North Carolina, Charlotte) (forthcoming)

“‘To move is to stir’: Romeo and Juliet in Contemporary Ballet.” Network of Pointes Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies series. Guest Editors: Drs. Kathrina Farrugia (Royal Academy of Dance, London) and Jill Nunes Jensen (Loyola Marymount University), 2015.

“Is Dance a Man’s Sport Too?  The Performance of Athletic-Coded Masculinity on the Concert Dance Stage.” When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders. ed. Jennifer Fisher and Anthony Shay. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

“What’s the Score: Structured Improvisation as National Pastime.” Taken By Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader. ed. Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003.