vita

Harmony Bench. Photo by Kassidy Bradford. 2016.

I am Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University and author of the open-access book Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common (University of Minnesota Press, 2020). From 2014-2019, I co-edited The International Journal of Screendance with Simon Ellis, and in 2021, I co-edited the special issue This Is Where We Dance Now: Covid-19 and the New and Next in Dance Onscreen with Alexandra Harlig. My writing has also appeared in Screen, The Drama Review, Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, and Performance Matters, as well as The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies, Routledge Dance Studies Reader (3rd ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen, Choreographies of 21st Century War, and Dance on Its Own Terms, among others. For a decade, I have collaborated with Kate Elswit to bring the digital humanities and dance history into greater dialogue through computational analysis and data visualization. Our projects together include Dunham’s Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry, which won the 2021 ATHE/ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Scholarship (Ref: AH/R012989/1; https://www.dunhamsdata.org), Visceral Histories, Visual Arguments: Dance-Based Approaches to Data (https://visceralhistories.wordpress.com/), and Radical Accounting: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Data as a Framework for Historical Imagination (time-based interventions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, September 2024-February 2025).

Academia.edu: https://osu.academia.edu/HarmonyBench

Current Position

Associate Professor, The Ohio State University, Department of Dance; and Theatre, Film, and Media Arts by courtesy
Affiliated Faculty in: Translational Data Analytics; Folklore; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Education

PhD, Culture and Performance, University of California, Los Angeles (2009)
MA, Performance Studies, New York University (2003)
BA, Women’s Studies, University of Utah (2001)
BFA, Ballet, University of Utah (2001)

Additional Certifications

American Ballet Theatre National Training Curriculum, Pre-primary–Level 5 (2021, 2022)
200 hour yoga teacher certification, Yoga on High, Columbus, OH (2019)

Book Projects

[Under Review] Edited Collection. Archival Entanglements. Co-edited with Puja Batra-Wells.
2020      Monograph. Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Online open access: https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/perpetual-motion; PDF and Epub: https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/91417

Digital Scholarship

2022-present  Visceral Histories, Visual Arguments: Dance-Based Approaches to Data, with Kate Elswit, https://visceralhistories.wordpress.com/
2022-present  Radical Accounting: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Data as a Framework for Historical Imagination included in The Edges of Ailey exhibition curated by Adrienne Edwards at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, September 2024-February 2025. Kate Elswit and Harmony Bench, with Antonio Jiménez-Mavillard and Tia-Monique Uzor.

  • Radical Accounting Series
    • 2024      “Generations of Embodied Knowledge: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Dance Artists, 1958-2023,” Radical Accounting Series 1 of 3. Time-based visualization of original data. 3 minutes, 48 seconds. https://whitney.org/media/61535
    • 2024      “Global Architectures: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, City by City and Year by Year, 1958-89,” Radical Accounting Series 2 of 3. Time-based visualization of original data. 3 minutes, 45 seconds. https://whitney.org/media/61534
    • 2024      “Repertory as Living Dance Museum: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Performance History, 1958-1989,” Radical Accounting Series 3 of 3. Time-based visualization of original data. 3 minutes, 45 seconds. https://whitney.org/media/61533
  • Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Performance Dataset:
    • 2025      1958-1989 Forthcoming

2018-2022  Dunham’s Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry, with Kate Elswit, https://www.dunhamsdata.org
Received 2021 ATHE-ASTR Award for Excellence in Digital Theatre and Performance Scholarship. Archived by the Library of Congress “in the historic collection of Internet materials related to the Performing Arts Web Archive. [Dunham’s Data is] an important part of this collection and the historical record.” Affiliated essay publications are listed below. Data visualizations are available through the project website. Published datasets housed in the National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture.

2016-2018  “Dance in Transit” with Kate Elswit
2014-ongoing (currently paused) “Mapping Touring” Database and data visualizations: http://movementonthemove.osu.edu/project-mapping-touring
2013  “Mascot Moskovina” http://scalar.usc.edu/works/mascot-moskovina/index

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

2022      “Visceral Data for Dance Histories: Katherine Dunham’s People, Places, and Pieces,” with Kate Elswit. The Drama Review (TDR) 66 (1): 37-61. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1054204321000708.
Winner, 2023 Dance Studies Association Gertrude Lippincott Award for the best English-language article published in dance studies.
2022      “‘So. . . Will You Be Looking at Dance?’: Data-led Dance History and the Edges of Movement Computing,” with Kate Elswit. MOCO ’22: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Movement and Computing. ACM, June. https://doi.org/10.1145/3537972.3537986
2021      “Cinematography, Choreography, and Cultural Influence: Rethinking Maya Deren’s The Very Eye of Night.” Screen 62 (4): 439-458. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjab050
2020      “Dance History and Digital Humanities Meet at the Archives: An Interim Project Report on Dunham’s Data,” with Kate Elswit. Dance Research 38 (2): 289-295. https://doi.org/10.3366/drs.2020.0314
2020      “Katherine Dunham’s Global Method and the Politics of Dance’s Everyday,” with Kate Elswit. Theatre Survey 61 (3): 305-30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040557420000253
2020      “Analyzing Afrique: One Dance and Three Methods,” with Baylie MacRae, and Kat Sprudzs. Research in Dance Education 21 (1): 43-56. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2019.1708889
2019      “Mapping Touring: Remediating Concert Dance Archives,” Dance Research Journal 51 (3): 4-27. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767719000342
2019      “Dance Touring and Embodied Data: Some Approaches to Katherine Dunham’s Movement on the Move,” with Kate Elswit, Current Research in Digital History 2 (1). https://doi.org/10.31835/crdh.2019.12
2016      “Mapping Movement on the Move: Dance Touring and Digital Methods,” with Kate Elswit, Theatre Journal 68 (4): 575-596. https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2016.0107
2016      “Improvising Philosophy: Thoughts on Teaching and Ways of Being,” Performance Matters 2 (1): 86-91. http://performancematters-thejournal.com/index.php/pm/article/view/31.
2010      “Screendance 2.0: Dance and Social Media,” Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, special edition Screen Dance Audiences, 7 (2). http://www.participations.org/Volume 7/Issue 2/special/bench.htm.
2010      “Anti-Gravitational Choreographies: Strategies of Mobility in Screendance,” The International Journal of Screendance 1 (1): 53-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v1i0.6138
2009      “Computational Choreographies: Performance in Dance Online,” The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 5 (2-3): 155-169.
2008      “Media and the No-place of Dance,” Forum Modernes Theater, 23 (1): 37-47.

Peer-Reviewed Contributions to Edited Volumes

[forthcoming]   “Just Moves?: Motion Extraction, Machine Learning, and the Generative Derivative in Dance,” Maaike Bleeker and Norah Zuniga-Shaw, eds. Routledge Companion for Performance & Technology.
2024      “Radical Accounting and the Edges of Archives: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Historical Data,” with Kate Elswit. Adrienne Edwards, ed. Edges of Ailey. New Haven: Yale University Press, 93-99 + foldout.
2024      “Dancing in Common?: Belonging, Transmission, and Extraction in Digital Cultures,” Yvonne Hardt, ed. Virtual Ecologies – Digitalitäten und Ökologien im Tanz, Verlag: Transcript, 35-50.
2023      “The Body is Not (Only) a Metaphor: Rethinking Embodiment in DH,” with Kate Elswit. Matthew Gold and Lauren Klein, ed. Debates in the Digital Humanities. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 93-104. https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/debates-in-the-digital-humanities-2023/section/6224c2b2-4b60-4315-82e7-84900b52fd1e#ch06
2023      “Choreographic Analysis as Dance Studies Methodology: Cases, Expansions, and Critiques,” with Rosemary Candelario, J. Lorenzo Perillo, and Cristina Fernandes Rosa. Rosemary Candelario and Matthew Henley, eds. Dance Research Methodologies: Ethics, Orientations, and Practices. London: Routledge, 113-133. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003145615
2019      “Screendance,” Sherril Dodds, ed. The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies. New York and London: Bloomsbury, 219-244.
2018      “‘Complex Temporalities’: Digitality and the Ephemeral Tense in Adam H. Weinert’s ‘The Reaccession of Ted Shawn’,” Jens Giersdorf and Yutian Wong, ed. Routledge Dance Studies Reader 3rd Edition, London: Routledge, 364-373.
2018      “Arranging (enchaînement),” Rachel Fensham, section ed. “Doing and Making” in Celia Lury, ed. Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research Methods. London: Routledge, 41-46.
2016      “Dancing in Digital Archives: Circulation, Pedagogy, Performance,” Maaike Bleeker, ed. Transmission in Motion: The Technologization of Dance. London: Routledge, 155-167.
2016      “Affective Temporalities: Dance, Media, and the War on Terror,” Gay Morris and Jens Giersdorf, ed. Choreographies of 21st Century Wars, Oxford: Oxford UP, 157-179.
2014      “Monstrous Belonging: Performing ‘Thriller’ After 9/11,” Melissa Blanco, ed. Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen, Oxford: Oxford UP, 393-411.
2014      “Gestural Choreographies: Embodied Disciplines and Mobile Media,” The Oxford Handbook to Mobile Music Studies, Sumanth Gopinath and Jason Stanyek, ed. New York: Oxford UP, 238-256.
2013      “‘Single Ladies’ is Gay: Queer Performances and Mediated Masculinities on YouTube,” Melanie Bales and Karen Eliot, ed. Dance on Its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies, Oxford: Oxford UP, 127-151.

Selected Short Pieces, Videos, and Editor Reviewed Publications

2024      “The Noise My Leaves Make: Black British Women and Surrendering to Belonging.” Interview of Tia-Monique Uzor for The International Journal of Screendance (14): 125-132.
2023/4 “« La danse n’est pas une image ». Repenser nos méthodologies à l’ère des réseaux sociaux. Entretien avec Harmony Bench.” Interview by Elina Djebbari, Mahalia Lassibille, and Laura Steil for (Dist)dances: une anthropologie des danses sur internet,  Émulations: Revue de sciences sociales 46: 27-36. https://journals.openedition.org/emulations/1874
2022      Review, Theater as Data: Computational Journeys into Theater Research by Miguel Escobar Varela. Theatre Survey 63 (3): 284-286. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040557422000254
2022      Extended abstract, “Connectivity vs. Canonicity: Data Science and Dance Studies in Historical Dialogue,” with Kate Elswit and Antonio Jiménez-Mavillard, Graphs and Networks in the Humanities, https://graphentechnologien.hypotheses.org/files/2022/01/Connectivity_vs_Canonicity_Data_Science_and_Dance_Studies_etc-Bench_Elswit_Mavillard.pdf
2019      “Datasets are Research,” with Kate Elswit, Dunham’s Data Research Blog. Web. https://dunhamsdata.org/blog/datasets-are-research
2019      “Editorial: Screendance Now,” with Simon Ellis, The International Journal of Screendance 10.1. Web. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v10i0.6850
2019      “Pathways, Histories, and ScreenDance Diaries: Sarah Elgart in Conversation,” The International Journal of Screendance 10 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v10i0.6831
2019      “‘Checking In’: The Flows of Dunham’s Performers,” with Kate Elswit, Dunham’s Data Research Blog. Web. https://dunhamsdata.org/blog/checking-in-the-flows-of-dunhams-performers
2019      “Be the Street 2018 Final Video.” Dir. Harmony Bench, with Doug Dangler and Mason Chapello (video capture) and Scott Sprague (video editing). Be the Street. http://go.osu.edu/Ckcs
2019      “The Stories Our Bodies Carry: An interview with performance choreographer Awílda Rodriguez Lora.” Wexner Center. http://go.osu.edu/C3D5
2018      “Tracking Dunham’s Everyday, 1950-53,” with Kate Elswit, Dunham’s Data Research Blog. Web. https://dunhamsdata.org/blog/tracking-dunhams-everyday-1950-53
2018      Review, Playable Bodies by Kiri Miller. Dance Research 36 (1): 116-117. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/drs.2018.0225
2018      “Scaffolding Story: Becoming Devisers.” Be the Street. http://go.osu.edu/CENz
2017      “Be the Street Welcome Video.” Dir. Harmony Bench, with Doug Dangler and John Slavnik (video capture) and Scott Sprague (video editing). Be the Street. http://go.osu.edu/CBgJ
2017      “Life Becomes Art: Devising Performance with Albany Park Theater Project.” Be the Street. http://go.osu.edu/B5RV
2017      “‘Being Human is Interdisciplinary’: Building Ensemble with Albany Park Theater Project.” Be the Street. http://go.osu.edu/B3zZ
2017      “Dance on Camera at 45,” The International Journal of Screendance 8 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v8i0.5840
2017      “Editorial: Solo/Screen,” with Simon Ellis, The International Journal of Screendance 8 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v8i0.5891
2016      Review, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre, ed. Nadine George-Graves. Studies in Theatre and Performance 36 (3): 281-283.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2016.1193327
2016      “Editorial: Field Perceptions,” with Simon Ellis, The International Journal of Screendance 6 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v6i0.5250.
2016      “Screendance: Learning, Teaching, Living,” an interview with Jason Bahling, Ben Estabrook, Natalie Gotter, Eric Nordstrom, and Ellen Maynard, The International Journal of Screendance 6 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v6i0.5232.
2015      “Editor’s Note: On Community, Collaboration, and Difference,” with Simon Ellis, The International Journal of Screendance 5 (1). http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v5i0.4866
2015      “Mobilizing Subjectivity: An Interview with Victoria Marks,” The International Journal of Screendance 5.1. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v5i0.4662
2013      “Maya Deren: A Prologue,” The International Journal of Screendance 3 (1): 6-11. https://doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v3i0.5694
2013      Review Essay, Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral Image by Douglas Rosenberg and Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image by Erin Brannigan. Dance Research Journal, 45 (2): 132-138.
2009      “Anti-Gravitational Choreographies: Strategies of Mobility in Screendance.” Nairnshire, Scotland: Goat Media, pp. 116-125. Reprint of Opensource: {Videodance} 2007: Proceedings of the Second Annual International Opensource: {Videodance} Symposium, Findhorn, Scotland, 20-24 November 2007.
2007      “Of Skins and Screens: Hyperdance, Haptic Cinema, and Contact Improvisation,” Extensions: The Online Journal for Embodiment and Technology 3. http://www.performancestudies.ucla.edu/extensionsjournal/bench.htm.

Selected Grants, Awards, and Fellowships

2023      Whitney Museum of American Art commission Radical Accounting: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Data as a Framework for Historical Imagination included in The Edges of Ailey exhibition curated by Adrienne Edwards ($80,000 direct support, $250,000 total value), with Kate Elswit.
2023      OSU Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Humanities, and Engineering: Interdisciplinary Collaborations ($41,975.25 for Phase 2: “Artificial Intelligence for Creative Movement Analysis and Synthesis: Overcoming racial bias in algorithms for spinal motion tracking in Black dance performance capture”; Harmony Bench Principal Investigator; Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Roger Crawfis, Crystal Perkins, Co-Principal Investigators; Mirkamil Mierkamili Graduate Student Researcher)
2023      OSU Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Humanities, and Engineering: Interdisciplinary Collaborations ($16,975.25 for “Artificial Intelligence in Society”; Morgan Liu Principal Investigator; Zahra Atiq, Harmony Bench, Micha Elsner, Nancy Ettlinger, Eric Fosler-Lussier Co-Principal Investigators)
2023      The University of Toronto Critical Digital Humanities Initiative Emerging Projects Fund ($10,000 Canadian for Look at These Oral Histories!: Graphic Recording and Visual Data in Dance Research, a Knowledge Exchange between Seika Boye, Principal Investigator, and Harmony Bench and Kate Elswit, Co-Investigators)
2022      OSU Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Humanities, and Engineering: Interdisciplinary Collaborations ($24,569 for “Artificial Intelligence for Creative Movement Analysis and Synthesis: Overcoming racial bias in algorithms for spinal motion tracking in Black dance performance capture”; Harmony Bench Principal Investigator; Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Roger Crawfis, Crystal Perkins, Co-Principal Investigators; Mirkamil Mierkamili Graduate Student Researcher)
2022      OSU Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme Society of Fellows: Archival Imaginations (2-course reduction to pursue Visceral Histories, Visual Arguments: Dance-Based Approaches to Data)
2022      OSU Large Grant ($5,000 for research and travel related to Visceral Histories, Visual Arguments: Dance-Based Approaches to Data)
2020      OSU Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme ($21,000 for Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID; Harmony Bench Principal Investigator; Yana Hashamova, Hannah Kosstrin, and Danielle Schoon Co-Investigators)
2018      Arts and Humanities Research Council (£566,000 for Dunham’s Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry; Kate Elswit Principal Investigator; Harmony Bench Co-Investigator) Research Grant AH/R012989/1.
2018      ASC International Travel Grant ($2,000 for “Dance in Transit: Katherine Dunham’s Southland and American Civil Rights on Tour”)
2018      Open Access Monograph Initiative Publication Subvention ($15,000 for Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common)
2017      OSU College of Arts and Sciences Virginia Hull Research Award ($2,500)
2017      OSU Undergraduate Research Award ($10,000 to take undergraduate researchers to the Library of Congress)
2016      OSU Large Research Grant for Conference Support ($20,000 for “Transmissions and Traces: Rendering Dance 2017 Dance Studies Association annual conference; Karen Eliot Principal Investigator; Hannah Kosstrin Co-Investigator and Conference Chair; Harmony Bench Co-Investigator)
2016      OSU Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme ($100,000 for “Be the Street: A Performance Studies Project on Human Mobility and Placemaking”; Ana Puga Principal Investigator; Harmony Bench, Katherine Borland, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Shilarna Stokes, Co-Investigators)
2016      Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs with OSU College of Arts and Sciences ($55,000 for “Dance in Transit”; Harmony Bench Principal Investigator; Kate Elswit Co-Investigator)
2015      OSU Office of Distance Ed. and eLearning ($7,000 for online course implementation)
2014      OSU Research and Creative Activity Grant ($19,000 for “Mapping Touring”)

Selected Leadership and Service

2020-2025      Editorial Board, The International Journal of Screendance
2023      Convenor, Artificial Intelligence and Society, writing workshop and symposium at The Ohio State University, with Morgan Liu. Dec. 14-15
2023      Convenor, Race, Motion Data, and AI, gathering at The Ohio State University, with Crystal Michelle Perkins and Vita Berezina-Blackburn. Aug. 31-Sept. 1
2021      Convenor, This Is Where We Dance Now: Covid-19 and the New and Next in Dance Onscreen, international virtual symposium connected to journal special issue, with Alexandra Harlig. Nearly 300 registrants. March 12-13 and 19-20 https://u.osu.edu/thisiswherewedancenow/
2020-2021      Guest editor, The International Journal of Screendance 12 (2021), with Alexandra Harlig. Special issue: This Is Where We Dance Now: Covid-19 and the New and Next in Dance Onscreen: https://doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v12i0
2014-2019      Co-editor, The International Journal of Screendance, with Simon Ellis

2012-2015      Board of Directors, Congress on Research in Dance; Board Member (2012-2013), Recording Secretary (2013-2015)
2012-2015      Co-convenor, Performance/Politics Working Group, Humanities Institute, The Ohio State University
2012-2014      Steering Committee, Digital Arts and Humanities Working Group, Humanities Institute, The Ohio State University