About Adanna

Adanna Kai Jones (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Dance in the Theater and Dance Dept at Bowdoin College. She received her Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies at the University of California, Riverside, and her BFA in Dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts—Rutgers University. She has performed in professional dance companies based in NYC and New Jersey, including the Julia Ritter Performance Group and Souloworks with Andrea E. Woods. 

As a scholar, her research generally focuses on Caribbean dance and identity politics within the Diaspora, paying particular focus to Trini-styled Carnivals and the rolling hip dance known as winin’. Nicknamed the “Doctor of Winin’,” her artistic and scholarly work remains rooted in the many dances of the Caribbean, paying particular attention to the multiple ways we roll our sweet waistlines!  

With regards to her own creative pursuits, she has choreographed dance-theater pieces that were not only based on her research but were also used as tools for generating more research questions. For example, she choreographed “Wine & Tales” in Port of Spain, Trinidad, which was presented by New Waves! 2015 and the Dancing While Black Performance Lab. And every summer, from 2016 to 2018, she performed new works in New York City with the support of Field Studies, a creative development lab designed for emerging artist/scholars. Upon moving to Maine, she brought her research on the Trinidadian Carnival and intimacy onto the stage with her piece “Navigating the Borders of Silence” as part of the Maine Moves performance series. ( It is important to note that each performance remained rooted in her ethnographic fieldwork.) 

 Lastly, as an educator, she remains committed to anti-racist pedagogic praxes. In addition to being a member of the Un/Commoning Pedagogies Collective, she is a current Steering Committee Member of the Coalition of Diasporan Scholars Moving. Both organizations aim to tackle, endure, unravel, and combat the pangs of white supremacy within academia and beyond.