Sima Belmar

Sima Belmar earned her Ph.D. in Performance Studies from TDPS in 2015, and holds an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Her scholarly writing has been published in The Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, Performance Matters, L'avventura, and the Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies (2016). Sima was a dance critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian from 1997-2003. Currently, she is the creator and host of the ODC podcast Dance Cast. She has taught dance on film and television, dance history, performance theory, modern dance technique, and college writing at several institutions including UC Berkeley, St. Mary's College of California, Sonoma State University, Mills College, Austin Peay State University, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley Ballet Theater, and IALS (Roma). Her research foci include the relationship between dance, talk, and gesture in North American concert dance, Dance in Popular Film and Television, Somatic Theory/Practice/Pedagogy, Performance and Phenomenology, and embodied research methods.