Gianina K.L. Strother

Gianina K.L. Strother is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University. She is a scholar, artist, and educator who works in performance studies across dance and theatre, looking at Black cultural expression as a lens on race, gender, class, and sexuality. Her research interests include Black Studies, Performance Studies, Dance Studies, Black Feminisms, Critical Race Theory, Contemporary African American Theatre, and storytelling.

K.L. Strother is completing her Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a dissertation titled “Staging the Detroit Jit: Community, Pleasure, and Spiritual Practice.” She holds an M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media from Columbia College Chicago and a B.S. in Chemistry, cum laude, from Howard University. She also holds professional certificates in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, Diversity and Inclusion and Project Leadership from Cornell University, and Nonprofit Executive Leadership from Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis.

Her writing appears in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and the collection Mothering as a Work of Art. Her forthcoming chapter in Black Social Dance: Embodied Geographies of Freedom, edited by Thomas DeFrantz and Webster McDonald, extend her research on Black social dance in Detroit, including the Jit’s performance within the opera Blue. She has presented her work at the National Women’s Studies Association, the International Federation for Theatre Research in Manila, Philipines, the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, the Dance Studies Association, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. She was also a researcher and panelist for SLIPPAGE Lab’s Mellon Foundation–funded initiative “Black Dance and Geographies of Freedom.”

At Michigan State, K.L. Strother has designed and taught courses including Black Sexualities Studies, Afrofuturism, Centering Wellness, Black Entrepreneurship & Hustle, Producing Culture, and Black Institutions, Sustainability, and Statecraft, and Introduction to African American and African Studies, Creative Expression, Culture and Performance, and Communities in Action. As a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellow, she has co-developed and taught several of these as global classrooms with Dr. Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Before joining MSU, she taught Black Theatre & Performance, Black Women Playwrights, and Dances of the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland, College Park.

K.L. Strother is experienced in building community and international partnerships. She is a two-time recipient of the International Program for Creative Collaboration and Research grant, which supported social justice projects with collaborators at the University of Ghana, Accra. In 2024 she received a site visit grant to establish a study abroad partnership with the  School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. She chairs the AAAS Faculty Engagement Community, is a co-mentor with the Alliance for African Partnership, and is faculty adviser to MSU’s student chapter of the NAACP. She has also served as a Faculty Coach with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, and for seven years as an Educational Adviser and Diversity & Inclusion Specialist with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. She has also worked as a Museum Educator and Docent at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC.

As an artist, K.L. Strother dances and drums with the TéMaTé Institute for Black Dance and Culture in Detroit. She has performed at the African World Festival and the Detroit Multicultural Dance Festival at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and as a percussionist in Ritual: Rhythms of Life and Legacy. Her 2025 Launch Award from MSU’s Diversity Research Network supports Undetermined, a new mixed-media installation. Earlier work includes appearing as a playwright/performer in the Kennedy Center’s 15th Annual Stage-to-Page New Play Festival, dancing with Kankouran West African Dance Community Class and Coyaba Dance Theater in Washington, D.C., and working as a dramaturg and voice actor. Her work has also been performed at Links Hall in Chicago.

She is the founder of Jasiri Consulting and a proud native of Detroit and graduate of Cass Technical High School. She also appeared as a background performer in the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale.

In her spare time, she likes to spend time with her family and take long naps.