Andrea Harris, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Dance Program, is a dance historian and scholar. As a researcher, Dr. Harris is interested in the relationship between dance and identity, or how people portray and understand themselves and others through dance. She is especially interested in the interplay between dance and national identity, and is currently exploring how the image of "American" ballet was transformed both aesthetically and historically in the mid-twentieth century. Her other research interests include the politics of artistic style, particularly as impacted by gender and race, and parodies of classical ballet in African American vaudeville, Josephine Baker's performances in Paris, and elsewhere.

Dr. Harris is the author of essays in Interrogating America through Theatre and Performance;A tavola con Spadolini, le grand danseur; Discourses in Dance, and the forthcoming Avant-Garde Performance and Material Exchange: Vectors of the Radical.  She is also the editor of Before, Between, and Beyond: Three Decades of Dance Writing, the most recent collection of dance historian Sally Banes's works.  Her performance credits include the Martha Graham Dance Company, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, and Li Chiao-Ping Dance.