Anita Gonzalez, Ph.D., is a professor of performing arts and African American studies at Georgetown University and a co-founding director of their Racial Justice Institute. Her edited and authored books are Performance, Dance and Political Economy (Bloomsbury); Black Performance Theory (Duke); Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (U-Texas Press); and Jarocho’s Soul (Rowan Littlefield). She has published articles about performance histories and cultures in the Radical History Review, Modern Drama, Theatre Research International, and Dance Research Journal. Additional essays about intercultural performance appear in the edited collections African Performance Arts and Political Acts, Black Acting Methods, Narratives in Black British Dance, The Community Performance Reade, and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre. She is a member of American Society for Theatre Research, the International Federation for Theatre Research, the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and the Dramatists Guild. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Gonzalez directs, devises and writes musical theater and operatic works that focus on telling underrepresented stories and histories. Recent works include the musical revue Kumanana for the Gala Hispanic Theater about Afro-Peruvian activists Nicomedes and Victoria Santa Cruz, Faces in the Flames for Atlanta Opera’s 96-Hour Opera Festival, the libretto Courthouse Bells about voting rights produced by Boston Opera Collaborative (2023), Zora on My Mind about Black women’s empowerment and Ybor City the Musical about Afro-Cuban cigar rollers in Tampa, Florida. Gonzalez believes the art of storytelling connects people to their cultures. Over 60,000 students have taken her massive open online courses Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest. Gonzalez advocates for beautiful art crafted for social activism and consciousness raising.