Ohio State Dance welcomes Kym McDaniel (she/her) to our faculty in autumn 2024 as a tenure-track assistant professor of dance film and digital technologies. McDaniel is an experimental filmmaker, multidisciplinary collaborator, choreographer, curator and educator. Her films have recently screened in solo and two-person screenings at UnionDocs – Center for Documentary Art (Queens, NY), Arts + Literature Lab (Madison, WI), Cellular Cinema (Minneapolis, MN), Rhizome DC (Washington, DC), and the Society for Disability Studies Conference, as well as in group exhibitions at Ann Arbor Film Festival, Slamdance, Experiments in Cinema, Antimatter, and the Whitney Humanities Center (Yale University), among others.
Her multidisciplinary research is informed by neurobiological theories of trauma, in addition to Crip Theory, Glitch Feminism, Queer Theory, and experimental technology, film and video. In her film/video work, she braids non-fiction personal narratives, often weaving fragmented bodies on screen, psychological and environmental landscapes, and invitations for the audience to become a part of the cinematic experience through voice, text or instruction.
She has been awarded grants from the New York State Council for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, and Mary L. Nohl Greater Milwaukee Foundation and is currently in residence at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. She has recently performed in the stacks at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, among bees at the Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI) and on 16mm and Super 8 film for independent films and music videos. As a media artist, she has collaborated with choreographers, performers, and disability activists, including Petra Kuppers/The Olimpias, Brooke Thiele, Hannah Hamalian, Simone Ferro, Elisabeth Roskopf, Luc Vanier, Elizabeth Johnson, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, and the Department of Theater (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) Department of Dance (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
As a curator, she has programmed film/video events focused on the body, movement, disability and gesture. Most recently, she was the lead curator for the 2024 Screendance Cultural Tour at the Salt Lake Film Society, a dance film festival in collaboration with the Tanner Humanities Center and College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. She also founded EXPS/SLC, a monthly screening series featuring films created by BIPOC, women and queer filmmakers.
She has an MFA in Cinematic Arts from the Department of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an Advanced Certificate in Disability Studies from the City University of New York. She was formerly an Assistant Professor and Program Director for the Graduate Certificate in Screendance at the University of Utah. She has also held teaching positions within the Cinema Department at Binghamton University, the Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Department of Dance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
'I am incredibly excited to join the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University and to contribute to the vibrant film, dance and disability communities in Columbus," says McDaniel. "My embodiment as a queer and disabled dancer informs my pedagogy and understanding of the body, camera and technology on screen and stage. I believe video can be a tool for somatic liberation, as well as an extension of memory, intuition and identity-formation. As Assistant Professor in Dance Film and Digital Technologies, one of my intentions is to introduce a multidisciplinary pedagogy where choreographic processes are translated to screen using sound, image, text and experimental film methodologies. I am especially looking forward to facilitating student involvement in underground film festivals and bringing my experience as a curator and community organizer to Columbus!"
