Mario LaMothe, PhD

Mario LaMothe is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies and Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Mario’s research involves embodied and affective pedagogies of Afro-Caribbean religious rituals, performance practice, and queer lifeworlds. Mario is a performance artist and curator, and his writing is featured in various peer-reviewed and commercial publications. He also co-convenes Afro-Feminist Performance Routes, the Haitian Studies Association’s Queer/Sexualities Working Group, and the Un/Commoning Pedagogies Collective.

Co-Editor:

• Special Issue “Nou Mache Ansanm (We Walk Together): Queer Haitian Performance and Affiliation.” With Dasha A. Chapman and Erin Durban-Albrecht. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 27.2, spring 2017.

Book Chapter:

• “Witnessing Queer Flights: Josué Azor’s Lougawou Images and Antihomosexual Unrest in Haiti.” Race and Performance After Repetition, edited by Soyica Diggs Colbert, Douglas Jones, and Shane Vogel. Duke University Press, September 2020.
• “The United States of Lucia: Three Generations of Haitian-Americans Reconfigure Ancestry, Home and Host Lands through Storytelling.” The Routledge Companion to African American Theatre and Performance (CAATP), edited by Kathy A. Perkins, Sandra L. Richards, Renée Alexander Craft, and Thomas F. DeFrantz. Forthcoming, 2018.
• “Witnessing Queer Flights:
Josué Azor’s Photo-Documentary of Lougawou Images in the Contemporary Era of Anti-Homosexual Unrest in Haiti.” Time Signatures: Race and Performance after Repetition, edited by Soyica Colbert, Douglas Jones, and Shane Vogel. Forthcoming, Duke University Press, 2018-19.

Journal and Public Humanities Articles:

• “Afro-Feminist Performance Routes: Documenting Embodied Dialogue and AfroFem Articulations” (Oral Histories). August 2021. Written by the AfroFem Cohort, compiled and introduced by Dasha A. Chapman and Mario LaMothe. Dance Review Journal 53.2: 8 – 26.
• “Manbo Ayizan on a New York Stage: How Roxane D’Orléans Juste Danced Women’s Movement Intelligence.” The Journal of Haitian Studies 25.2, Fall 2019.
• “Our Love on Fire: Gay Men’s Stories of Violence and Hope in Haiti.” Special Issue “Nou Mache Ansanm (We Walk Together): Queer Haitian Performance and Affiliation. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory 27.2, spring 2017.
• “Dedouble and Jeanguy Saintus’ Corporeal Gifts.” e-misférica 11.2, spring 2015.

Co-authored/Collaborative Articles

• “Un/Commoning Pedagogies: Forging Collectivity Through Difference in the Embodied Classroom and Beyond.” Dasha A. Chapman, J Dellecave, Adanna Kai Jones, Sharon Freda Kivenko, Mario LaMothe, Lailye Weidman, and Queen Meccasia Zabriskie. Performance Matters 2 (2023).
• “Afro-Feminist Performance Routes: Documenting Embodied Dialogue and AfroFem Articulations” (Oral Histories). August 2021. Written by the AfroFem Cohort, compiled and introduced by Dasha A. Chapman and Mario LaMothe. Dance Review Journal 53.2.

Health Communication:

• Associate Researcher. PSI Research and Metrics. “2014 Integrated Behavioral and Biological Survey (IBBS) with Female Commercial Sex Workers and Men who Have Sex with Men.” Summary Reports (2014, 2015). Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), German bank KFW and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Péguy-Ville, Haiti.
• Associate Researcher. PSI Research and Metrics. “HIV Prevalence and Condom Use Among Men who Have Sex with Men.” Summary TRaC Report (2012). Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), German bank KFW and the United Nations Development Programme. Pétion-Ville, Haiti.

Ph.D., Northwestern University, 2015. Performance Studies
M.F.A., Brooklyn College (CUNY), 1999. Performing Arts Management
Certificate, Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, 1994. Dance
B.A., Boston College, 1992. Theater Arts and French Studies

American Society for Theatre Research

American Studies Association

The Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, Board Member

Dance Studies Association

Haitian Studies Association

Performance Studies International

SLIPPAGE: Performance/Culture/Technology

An oral history-based ethnography about the making and maintenance of a queer Haitian community in Montreal, Canada by LGBTQI+ Haitian immigrants and refugees.

Chicago’s history of ensemble-made Black dance and performance  curation.

Co-Convener:
2018 & 2016:Afro-Feminist Performance Routes: An Embodied Dialogue, Duke University, April 2016 and February 2018.

Curation:
2018: ‘Sanctified’ I & II.  University of Illinois at Chicago, African-American Cultural Center, fall 2018. Two distinct yet complimentary exhibits increase public knowledge of Haitian-American author, perfomer and gay rights activist Assotto Saint (b. Yves Francis Lubin). They also introduce visitors to news way of thinking about African diaspora religions.

2016 – 2017:A Year of Remedies. University of Illinois at Chicago, African-American Cultural Center. A year-round series featuring visual arts exhibits, film and digital series screening, community workshops, a dance performance and a symposium.

2016: Butarewegoodnow. Movement improvisation choreography, Columbia College dancers. Assistant to choreographer Thomas DeFrantz. Columbia College, Chicago, IL, October 2016.

2015: A Choreography of Contagion: Absence and Presence of Black Bodies in Health Visual Culture.University of Illinois at Chicago, African-American Cultural Center, fall 2015.

2015: Noctambules: Queer Nightlife in Haiti.Photographic series co-curated with Dasha A. Chapman. Duke University, 2015 - 2016.

Performer:
2015 – Present: Our Love on Fire: Gay Men’s Stories of Hope and Violence in Haiti.Performative presentation with post-presentation dialogue, Duke University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois State University, Loyola University of Chicago, Haitian Studies Association Conference (2015), Caribbean Studies Association Conference (2016).

2016:  theory-ography 4.5-a we [still] queer here.SLIPPAGE: Performance |Culture| Technology. Founder and Director: Thomas DeFrantz; Project Dramaturg and Moderator: Clare Croft; Feminist Theory Workshop, Duke University, March 4, 2015.