Alexandra Kolb is Professor of Dance at Roehampton University. She is an experienced international speaker, panel and conference organizer, mentor, and peer reviewer for journals and academic publishers. At Roehampton, she teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, supervises a broad range of Ph.D. projects, and leads the Ph.D. programme in the School of Arts. She is the Reviews Editor of Dance Research and sits on the AHRC Peer Review Committee. She has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Grenoble Alpes.

She arrived at Roehampton in 2017 having previously lectured as Reader at Middlesex University (2012-2017), Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Dance programme at the University of Otago in New Zealand (2006-2012), and Coordinator of Academic Studies at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance (2005-2006). She has also worked in academic publishing in the fields of dance and music at a German publishing house, Olms. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and first-class Masters degrees from both Cambridge and Cologne.

Her research covers numerous aspects of the political, gender and interdisciplinary treatments of 20^th and 21^st-century dance. It has been supported by UK, US, German and New Zealand funding bodies and has won several prizes. She has published many academic articles and three books: Performing Femininity: Dance and Literature in German Modernism (2009), the anthology Dance and Politics (2011), and most recently Dancing Europe: Identities, Languages, Institutions (2022, co-edited with Nicole Haitzinger). She is conducting research on a project funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme titled "On Air: Exploring the historical, scientific and political impact of inflatables in choreography", and is writing a monograph on “Dancing the Everyday: Choreographies of the Ordinary and their Corporeal Politics.” 

She has given invited lectures and keynote talks in many countries, including the USA, Brazil, Sweden, Austria, Bulgaria, France and Italy.

MA (Cologne), MPhil (Cambridge), PhD (Cambridge)

Reviews Editor, Dance Research

Executive Committee, SDR (Society for Dance Research),

AHRC Peer Review Committee

Advisory Board, Dance in Dialogue Book Series (Bloomsbury)

Fellow of the Cambridge European Society

Member of the Deutsche Tanzgesellschaft (Germany)

Member of ADSA (Australia)

Alexandra has convened and taught on a wide range of undergraduate and Master's modules, including Ways of Knowing; Dance, Culture and Society; Performance of Heritage; Key Perspectives; Dance, History and Politics; Dance, History and Philosophy; Extended Essay, Gender, Sexualities and Performance; BA Dissertation; MA Dissertation; Choreomundus Dissertation Writing Class; Classicism and Power; Representing and Embodying Dance History; Philosophy and Performance; and Dance Anthropology.

Ph.D. supervisor:

2024 Alana Reibstein: Dancing-the-Religious with Ruth St. Denis and Mary Wigman: A Philosophical Perspective on Esotericism and Occultism in Early Modern Dance, Director of Studies

2024 Alina Andrei: Unpacking the 'Estilo Argentino' Phenomenon: A Study of Argentine Belly Dance Evolution and Pedagogy, Director of Studies

2022 Joseph Teeter: Dancing Through The Goldberg Variations: A Choreomusical Analysis of Works by Jerome Robbins, Pam Tanowitz, and Steve Paxton, Director of Studies

2020 Phaedra Petsilas: Towards a new politics of dance pedagogy in the traditional conservatoire, Director of Studies

2020 Crystal (Siyuan) Gong: Audience reception, creative processes and global culture, Director of Studies

2019 Elisabeth Motley: Indeterminable Bodies: Rethinking Choreographies of Deviance, Divergence, and Disability, Director of Studies

2018 Magdalen Gorringe: Professionalising Culture: Love, License, Labour and Lawmakers – British South Asian Arts organisations and the Professionalisation of South Asian dance in Britain, co-supervisor

2018 Andrea Paz Torres Viedma: Moving with-being moved: improvisation as a practice of togetherness, Director of Studies

2017 Rowan McLelland: Examining the Red Corps: An Investigation into the Adoption, Revolution, and Continued Development of Ballet in China, co-supervisor

She welcomes potential research degree students to discuss proposals for study in the following areas:

• Dance and politics
• Dance and gender 
• German modern dance
• Dance and the everyday 
• Dance and literature
• Collaboration and interdisciplinarity
• Ballet studies