Tara Aisha Willis is a dance artist, writer, dramaturg, and curator based in Chicago and Troy, NY. She studies Black living and experimentation in dance, performance, and their archives. Currently Curator of Dance & Theater at EMPAC, she’s previously held positions at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, University of Chicago, and Movement Research where she founded the Artists of Color Council. Part of the “Bessie” Award-winning Skeleton Architecture, she’s performed for Will Rawls, Yanira Castro, Anna Sperber, Kim Brandt, devynn emory, and Paulina Olowska among others, and collaborated with Damon Locks, Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Anna Martine Whitehead, Zachary Nicol, Anna Adams Stark, jess pretty, and Jasmine Hearn. She earned a Ph.D. in Performance Studies at NYU and held research fellowships with the Getty Research Institute, NYPL for the Performing Arts, University of Indiana-Bloomington, University of London, and Jacob’s Pillow. Published writings include liquid blackness, Getty Research Institute, CARA, Center for Book Arts, The Black Scholar, Women & Performance, MRPJ, Brooklyn Rail, and soon University of Illinois. She is co-editor/author of the art books Marking the Occasion (Wendy’s Subway, 2021), and forthcoming: in the horizontal plane: taisha paggett performance works (Soberscove Press, 2026) and Ephemeral Organ (EMPAC/Wendy’s Subway, 2026).
