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 that critically engages the Black cultural past as it imagines Black futurity. 

 

Michael is a 2021-2023 Princeton University Arts Fellow and Lecturer in the Program in Dance at Princeton's Lewis Center for the Arts.

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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. He works between the fields of performance studies and Black dance studies. His writing has been published in Choreographic Practices and he has presented his research at conference meetings of the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, the Dance Studies Association, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and other organizations. Michael is an alumnus of Emerson College. 

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Michael's work has been supported and presented by Fusebox Festival, ARCOS Dance, Ground Floor Theatre, and The Cohen New Works Festival. Michael has also collaborated with film-based artist Ariel René Jackson on a number of videos and performance pieces that have been featured in The New York Times Style Magazine's #TBlackArtBlackLife Series and programmed by CUE Art Foundation (New York), the New Museum (New York), SXSW (Austin), the Galleries at the University of Northern Colorado, the Jacob Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington, PARA Foundation (Berlin), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural, and Genealogy Center (Austin), and the Visual Arts Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Michael and Ariel were awarded the 2021 Tito's Prize.

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Michael is an Austin Critics' Table Award winner and a B. Iden Payne Award nominee. He was a laboratory cast member of the Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe Broadway musical Shuffle Along..., performed with award recipients, The JaM Project, at the 2016 Capezio ACE Awards and DancerPalooza's 25 LIVE!, danced with Baakari Wilder at the DanceAfrica DC Festival, and performed with Andrew J. Nemr's New York City-based company Cats Paying Dues. 

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Michael has collaborated with a number of theatre artists, setting movement for siri gurudev's The Future of Ismael as directed by kt shorb at Generic Ensemble Company, Ari L. Monts' black girl love: an adaptation project as directed by kt shorb and Simone Raquel Alexander at Generic Ensemble Company/ The VORTEX (Austin), and Caridad Svich's 12 Ophelias and Drew Paryzer's Loverboy as directed by Jess Shoemaker at Texas Theatre and Dance. 

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Michael has over eighteen years of experience as an educator and teaching artist. He has taught multiple disciplines in a number of educational settings and created and set ensemble and solo works on young artists across the country and internationally. He has worked with NOW Dance Workshops in Mexico (Monterrey, Nuevo León and Guadalajara, Jalisco) and has taught extensively throughout Central Texas with organizations such as Creative Action and at studios such as Dancers Workshop (both in Austin).

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In addition to his work as a choreographer, performer, scholar, and educator, Michael has curated live, interactive performance-based experiences for The Blanton Museum of Art (Austin) and the Fusebox Festival Hub as a founding member of Block Party Collective in addition to designing and executing pre-show lobby experiences and communications and public relations strategies in-house as the Communications Coordinator at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC).

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Michael is originally from the Washington, DC metropolitan area where he trained as a member of the acclaimed Tappers With Attitude Youth Ensemble.