Sally Crawford-Shepherd is a dance practitioner and academic. A Kansan by birth, she has moved around the world exploring dance in diverse cultures to share through performances, research, and workshops with professionals and students. She completed her PhD at De Montfort University and her thesis was a multi-sited ethnographic study of two self-named tap dance communities in Manchester and London, England. The aim was to understand how these communities engaged with music and tap improvisation as a social process within a non-theatrical context outside of the United States. Her current research interests continue along this theme, exploring how tap dance improvisation and individual performance identity move beyond the stage to become a medium for arts activism and dance scholarship in live and digital platforms.
Sally is currently the Programme Leader for the BA(Hons) Dance Performance course at Addict Dance Academy.