PS Alum Tara Aisha Willis named the new Curator of Dance & Theater at EMPAC

After a year as Curator-in-Residence, PS Alum Tara Aisha Willis (Ph.D. '22, M.A. '13) has been announced as the new Curator of Dance & Theater at EMPAC, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY. Executive Director Dena Beard writes, "More than a venue, EMPAC is a living instrument and a vibrant laboratory. Together, we’re not just presenting art and research; we’re cultivating new forms of inquiry, supporting risk with care, and creating the conditions for artists and researchers to go beyond the edge of what is known. With over 700 projects developed since EMPAC’s founding, we’re now entering a new chapter—one that embraces a more playful, festival-based model, connecting local and global experimental communities in new ways. In that spirit, I’m thrilled to announce that Tara Aisha Willis, our curator-in-residence, will be joining us permanently as our curator of theater & dance. Since November 2024, Tara has led Ephemeral Organ, a compelling series of residencies, performances, and talks by artists exploring choreography and bodily motion as technologies of memory, history, and lived experience. This work culminates in the Ephemeral Organ festival April 17–18, 2025. Please join us and welcome Tara to our community!"

Willis is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Getty Research Institute's African American Art History Initiative, where she is developing her dissertation—on Black experimental and improvised dance by Will Rawls, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Bebe Miller, and Ralph Lemon from her positions as both a curator and dancer within the work—into a book manuscript. She previously organized performance programming at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Movement Research.