Megan Nicely

Megan Nicely is an artist/scholar whose research involves choreographic experimentation through the medium of the body. Her background includes contemporary release-style dance, Japanese butoh, Alexander Technique, yoga, and other somatic practices. She places these in dialogue with philosophies of the body and performance theory to inform both her performed and written work. Her group Megan Nicely/Dance has been presented on both US coasts, the UK, and Europe, and her book Experimental Dance and the Somatics of Language: Thinking in Micromovement was recently published by Palgrave. She has served as Managing Editor for TDR: The Drama Review, Facilitator for the artist group The Field, and co-teaches a weekly community butoh class. She continues to perform and present her research and collaborative choreographic projects at venues and conferences both locally and worldwide.

• Experimental dance/choreography
• Performance studies
• Theories of the body
• Somatics

• Co-Coordinator of the Dance Program (2010 - present)

• Chair, Performing Arts and Social Justice (2020-2023)

• Co-Chair, Arts Peer Review Committee (2024-2025)

• Chair, Distinguished Research Award Committee (2022-2023)

• MA, PhD in Performance Studies, New York University
• MFA in Dance, Mills College
• BA in Art History, Reed College

• Director, Megan Nicely/Dance
• Managing Editor, TDR: The Drama Review

• "Language Created the Body Anew: Kasai Akira's Post-Butoh," in Booklet 32 (Keio University, 2024)
• humXn forms (2024), SF International Arts Festival
• Experimental Dance and the Somatics of Language: Thinking in Micromovement (Palgrave, 2023)
• Shifting Time (2019), Grandel Theater
• Breath Catalogue (2015), Fort Mason Firehouse Theater