Lizzie Leopold (she/her) is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, in the department of Arts Administration and Policy.  Leopold is a scholar of dance and performance studies, with a research focus on intersections of dance and the political economy of its production and circulation – asking questions about cultural and financial value. What is a dance worth and why? She served as the first executive director of the international Dance Studies Association (DSA) and as a lecturer in Theater & Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. Having been a dancer/choreographer in Chicago for many years before turning to academia, Lizzie holds an Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama from Northwestern University, an MA in Performance Studies from New York University, and a BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan. Current projects include a two-volume anthology on Chicago dance histories from the World’s Fair to the present, Dancing on the Third Coast: Chicago Dance Histories (editors: Leopold and Susan Manning), including Leopold’s essay on mid-century modern dancer Sybil Shearer exploring the relationship of Shearer’s work to questions of artistic legacy and choreographic valuation, and Budget as Score: Performance as/is Capital, an early-stage scholarly and artistic collaboration with interdisciplinary artist Brendan Fernandes. Lizzie was the director of Chicago-based modern dance company the Leopold Group from 2006-2018. This precarious balance of scholarship, teaching, administration, and parenting allows a study of the field as it is experienced, from the critical contingencies that make it all run.