Research interests include contemporary choreography, post-Anthropocentric performance, site-specificity, arts activism, domesticity, artistic labor, intersections between dance and architecture, domesticity, and dance in visual art contexts. Her current research investigates dance, protest, and abolition ecologies as they intersects forest defense and conservation, dancing arboreal relations through the lens of what she theorizes as “epiphytic choreographies.”
Professional Experience
Biba Bell is a performer, dancer, and writer based in Detroit. Her performance work has been shown in France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Canada, and across the U.S. She was a Kresge Arts in Detroit Live Arts Fellow and a DAAD guest professor of Experimental Performance in Germany, and is currently an Associate Professor in Dance at Wayne State University. Bell’s performance work has been presented internationally, including the Kitchen (NYC), Judson Memorial Church (NYC), Roulette Intermedium (NYC), Jack NY, Centre Pompidou Paris, Garage for Contemporary Culture (Moscow), Jack Hanley Gallery (NYC), Human Resources (LA), Esalen Institute (Big Sur), Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Kunstlerhaus Bremen, Insel Hombroich, Matéria Gallery, Galerie Camille, Dash Marshall Studios (Detroit), amongst others Most recently she was a guest artist researcher at Im_Flieger in Vienna, choreographed and performed with Detroit Opera in John Cage’s Europoeras 3 & 4 directed by Yuval Sharon, and performed in Joan Jonas’ Mirror Piece I & II at Museum of Modern Art. Her essay “Becoming Epiphyte: Tree Sitting, Hypermingling, (Para)sitism, and Abolition Ecologies” is published in Liminalities: a Journal of Performance Studies and she self-published the book Modern Garage Movement (2005-2011) on the namesake performance collective of which she was a member. She edited the 2nd issue of Detroit Research Journal /On Dance and was co-editor of Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence 2014-2016. Her writing has been published in The Drama Review, Dance Research Journal, Movement Research Performance Journal, Pastelegram, Performance Research Journal, Sound American Journal, and FRONT. Her choreographic work, often set in unconventional venues, focuses on domesticity, labor, and architecture. Bell earned her PhD in Performance Studies from New York University and is an Associate Professor of Dance at Wayne State University. Of her dancing the New York Times writes “It’s invigorating to watch someone who borders on wild.”