SanSan Kwan will chair the department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as of July 1, 2022. Kwan is Associate Professor and previously served as the department Vice Chair. She will serve a three-year term following outgoing chair and professor Joe Goode.
Kwan's research interests include dance studies, Asian American studies, theories of space and kinesthesia, and interculturalism. Her new book is titled Love Dances: Loss and Mourning in Intercultural Collaboration (Oxford University Press, 2021). She is also author of Kinesthetic City: Dance and Movement in Chinese Urban Spaces (Oxford University Press, 2013) and co-editor, with Kenneth Speirs, of Mixing It Up: Multiracial Subjects (University of Texas Press, 2004).
Her article on cartographies of race and the Chop Suey circuit, a group of Asian American cabaret entertainers who toured the nation during the World War II era, is published in TDR. Dance Research Journal has published her research on contended understandings of the term “contemporary” across dance genres and communities. Additional articles can be found in Representations, Performance Research, and other journals and anthologies.
SanSan remains active as a professional dancer and is currently performing with Lenora Lee Dance.