Joanna Dee Das is an Associate Professor in the Performing Arts Department at Washington University in St. Louis and an affiliate of the Program in American Culture Studies, the African and African-American Studies Department, and the History Department. She writes about dance, musical theater, variety entertainment, country music, and how those forms have played a role in social and political movements including the long Black Freedom Struggle, decolonization, modern conservatism, and the Religious Right. She is the author of the award-winning Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (Oxford Press, 2017). Before getting her PhD in History, Das worked as a professional dancer and choreographer in New York, where she performed at Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), the Cunningham Studio, WAXWorks, and DanceNow/NYC.   

Lauren Morrow is the author of the novel Little Movements, which was named a Best Book of the Fall by People, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, and more. She studied dance and creative writing at Connecticut College and earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She was a Kimbilio Fellow, an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, and the recipient of two Hopwood Awards, among other prizes. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares and the South Carolina Review. She worked in publicity at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is now a publicity manager at Dutton, Plume, and Tiny Reparations Books. Originally from St. Louis, she lives in Brooklyn.