Harmony Bench

Harmony Bench is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University, affiliated with Translational Data Analytics, Theatre, Film and Media Arts, Folklore, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on dance and digital media intersections, including screendance, digital archiving, and embodiment theory. She holds a PhD in Culture and Performance from UCLA, MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and degrees in Ballet and Women’s Studies from the University of Utah.

Her book Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common (2020) explores dance’s role in digital communities. She co-edited The International Journal of Screendance (2014–2019) and guest-edited a special issue on pandemic-era dance practices. Current projects include the AHRC-funded Dunham’s Data, analyzing Katherine Dunham’s transnational tours through computational methods. She is a 2022–23 Global Arts + Humanities Fellow.

Research highlights include data visualization workshops for youth, digital humanities collaborations with Kate Elswit, and award-winning projects like the TimelineJS Dunham’s 1950s activism timeline. Awards include the 2021 ATHE/ASTR Digital Scholarship Award for her work on Katherine Dunham’s archives.