Sally Sommer

A dance historian, dance critic, and academic, Sally Sommer is widely recognized as a leading expert on dance in American popular culture. As associate professor of the practice of dance at Duke University, she taught courses in history of modern dance, history of African-American dance, and dance criticism. Since the autumn of 2001, she has been a full professor at Florida State University, teaching in the master’s program in dance. As a dance critic and performance journalist, she writes regularly for periodicals in this country and for Le Monde, the Paris-based journal for which she is special New York correspondent. As a historian, she served as dance editor for the Encyclopedia of African-American History and Culture (Macmillan, 1996), and she has served as commentator and artistic consultant on dance performance for national public radio and public television, focusing on social dance, tap dance, dance in music videos, and contemporary club dance.