Michael J. Love is an interdisciplinary tap dance artist, scholar, and educator. His embodied research intermixes Black queer feminist theories and aesthetics with a rigorous practice to critically engage Black cultural pasts and “rhythm dream” of futurity. 

 

Michael is Assistant Professor of Dance in the Department of Theater and Dance at Ursinus College. He is also the 2025-26 Dexter F. and Dorothy H. Baker Foundation Artist-in-Residence in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Muhlenberg College. Prior to joining the Dance faculty at Ursinus, Michael was a 2021-23 Princeton University Arts Fellow and Lecturer in the Program in Dance at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. Michael holds an M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice from the Department of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin and is an alumnus of Emerson College. 

 

Michael’s creative research projects include The AURALVISUAL MIXTAPE Collection (Part I, Part II, and Part III), a triptych of performance installations that sample and loop various media and sounds to envision sites of liberation, and #SampledMixedandRemixed, a series of technology-driven performances that seek to reveal unexpected presences in cultural and institutional archives. In Texas, Michael’s work has been supported and presented by Fusebox Festival and ARCOS Dance and recognized by the Austin Critics' Table. His scholarship has been published in b2o: an online journal and Choreographic Practices. Michael was one of four dance artists featured in visual artist, filmmaker, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s The Trace Of An Implied Presence at The Shed in New York.

 

Michael has enjoyed numerous collaborations with artists across disciplines including the Grammy-Award winning quartet Sō Percussion, rhythmanalyst DeForrest Brown Jr., and anti-disciplinary artist Aryel René Jackson. Most recently, Michael was one of several co-composers to appear on Sō's 25x25 (2025). In 2024, Michael and DeForrest presented their work at Amant. Additionally, Michael and Aryel received the 2021 Tito’s Vodka Prize and, in New York, have had their videos programmed by CUE Art Foundation and the New Museum and screened at the Museum of Modern Art.

 

Michael's credits include the Broadway laboratory for choreographer Savion Glover and director George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along…, and roles in works by choreographer Baakari Wilder. Love is a native of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

 

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Photo © 2017 by Cindy Elizabeth​​​​​