Dance scholar and artist “moving minds, moving bodies and moving souls” to advance transformational social change and policies.
Mark Broomfield (PhD, MFA), Associate Professor of English and Founding Director of Performance as Social Change at SUNY Geneseo, is a London-born award-winning scholar and artist of Jamaican heritage with numerous publications in the areas of race, gender, sexuality, dance performance and ethnography. Broomfield has performed nationally and internationally, and danced with the repertory company Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, performing in leading works by some of the most diverse and recognized African American choreographers in the American modern dance tradition. An innovative educator and facilitator, Broomfield has lectured, choreographed, and directed widely across the U.S.
His scholarship focuses on reimagining masculinity and embodied gender performance for transformational social change in the twenty-first century. His first book Black Queer Dance: Gay Men and the Politics of Passing for Almost Straight, forthcoming by Routledge, is a groundbreaking exploration of black masculinity and sexual passing in American contemporary dance. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in New York City, the book features keen observations and in-depth interviews with acclaimed dancer-choreographers Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden Co-Artistic Directors of Complexions Contemporary Ballet and Ronald K. Brown, Artistic Director of Evidence. Black Queer Dance examines one of the most visible crucibles for masculinity—the male dancer—and illuminates the contradictory and conditional acceptance of black gay men’s contributions to American modern dance.
The book questions the politics of "coming out" and situates a new framework of "doing out" for understanding marginalized black LGBT people in 20th and 21st century. Narratives of black queer male dancers’ performance of identity reveal the challenges posed navigating strategic gender performances. Broomfield demonstrates how the experiences of black queer, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary men expose the illusions of all masculine gender performances. Drawing on masculinity studies, critical race and performance theory, and queer studies Black Queer Dance implicates the author’s embodied history, autoethnography, memoir and poetry that shines light on how black queer men offer an expansive vision of masculinity.
His soon to be released documentary Danced Out tells the story about professional black male ballet and contemporary dancers, in New York City, who are gay. The dancers reveal the unique function of gay men in society and their surprising insights on masculinity in our culture.
Among Broomfield’s awards and recognitions are the Institute for Citizens and Scholars Career Enhancement Fellowship (formerly the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation), the SUNY Faculty Diversity Award, the Ford Foundation Fellowship and is featured in the 2001 Emmy Award winning Ailey Camp "Chowdah" Production.