Tara Rodman

Tara Rodman is an assistant professor of drama at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the circulation of performers and performance forms among Japan, Europe, and the United States in the early 20th century. More broadly, her work examines how the performer’s body contributes to the construction of racial, ethnic, and national meanings, both onstage and offstage.

Her current book project, Fantasies of Itō Michio, highlights the overlooked ties between the Japanese modern dancer and choreographer and contemporaneous Japanese modernist artists such as Yamada Kosaku and Ishii Baku. The book positions “fantasy” as both a survival tactic and a scholarly tool for rethinking artistic legacy. For this project, she received a 2018 Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a joint activity of the Japan–United States Friendship Commission and the NEH, as well as the Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize.

Rodman’s scholarship has appeared in Theatre Journal and Theatre Research International, with forthcoming contributions in Dancing East Asia and The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance. Her reviews and encyclopedia entries have also been published in Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

At UC Irvine, Rodman serves on the UCI Esports Faculty Advisory Board, where she oversees and guides the program to ensure it remains aligned with the university’s mission of academic excellence in research and education.

She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.