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

 

Currently, Michael is Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at Hunter College, CUNY (New York, NY). Previously, Michael has held appointments as Assistant Professor of Dance at Ursinus College (Collegeville, PA) and a 2021-23 Princeton University Arts Fellow and Lecturer in the Program in Dance at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. Michael’s work has been supported by the 2026 Albert M. Greenfield Residency at FringeArts (Philadelphia, PA), the National Center for Choreography-Akron (Akron, OH), the 2025-26 Baker Artist Residency at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA), Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX), and ARCOS Dance (Austin, TX). His scholarship has been published in b2o: an online journal and Choreographic Practices. Michael has enjoyed numerous collaborations with artists across disciplines including the experimental quartet Sō Percussion, rhythmanalyst DeForrest Brown Jr., and artist Aryel René Jackson. Most recently, Michael was one of several co-composers to appear on Sō’s 2025 album 25x25, and has performed with the quartet at Carnegie Hall and Chelsea Factory in New York. Michael and DeForrest have presented their work at Amant (Brooklyn, NY). Michael and Aryel received the 2021 Tito’s Vodka Prize. Their videos have been programmed/screened by the Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and CUE Art Foundation, the New Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Michael was featured in artist and filmmaker Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s exhibition, The Trace Of An Implied Presence, at The Shed (New York); was in the Broadway laboratory cast of choreographer Savion Glover and director George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along...; and has been in works by choreographer Baakari Wilder. Michael holds an M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice from The University of Texas at Austin and is an alumnus of Emerson College. Michael is a native of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.​​

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Photo © 2017 by Cindy Elizabeth​​​​​