Ryan Tacata is a performance maker and scholar living in San Francisco. He has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) and recently received his PhD in Performance Studies from Stanford University. His recent performance projects include dancing in Doggie Hamlet (2015-) by Ann Carlson (a site-specific dance with four human performers, sheep herding dogs, and 60+ sheep); The Magical Order of. . .(2014) with Julie Tolentino for YBCA in Community (a group work with young Bay Area artists); Séance (a dance work with four Spiritualist mediums, forthcoming); Lolas with Julie Tolentino (a performance installation in honor of Filipino grandmothers, forthcoming); and Artists Weather Television (a televisual gallery of emerging artists working with weather conditions for SF Public Access, forthcoming). His academic research investigates alternative methods of archival research, performance art historiography, and experimental spatial practice. As an educator, his workshops and university classes cover a range of topics, including interspecies performance, love and gift economies, practice-based-research, body art, automobiles in the avant-garde, and the sporting event. He is currently a Visiting Faculty member in the the department of History and Theory of Contemporary Art at the San Francisco Art Institute.