Rachel is an artist/scholar with 15 years of professional and university directing experience across the west coast, as well as actor training at Russia's Moscow Art Theater and Stanford University. Her creative and academic research focuses on collaborative approaches to performance, the power of everyday tasks and experience, and the aesthetics of slowness and fun. She likes making theater from scratch, bicycling really fast, and advocating for the improvisational partnership of rock climbing, Argentine tango, and theatrical performance.  

rachelandersonrabern.weebly.com

Ph.D. Stanford University, Stanford, California

B.A. Reed College, Portland, Oregon

Moscow Art Theater, Moscow, Russia

Maricopa Community College District, Maricopa Country, Arizona (2011-2012)

Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California (2009)

Stanford University, Stanford, California (2005-2009)

- “Pedestrian Movement as Dance in Collective Creation Experiments,” in Negotiations of Power:

A History of Collective Creation. (book chapter, in contract negotiations)

Argues that contemporary instances of deskilled dance create new forms of conceptual

virtuosity, and connects postmodern dance to the ongoing history of collective creation.

- “The Nature Theater of Oklahoma and the Aesthetics of Fun,” in TDR: The Drama Review, Vol

54, No. 4 (Winter 2010)

Defines Nature Theater’s aesthetic of fun as a footprint of processes committed to

navigating everyday obstacles ethically, with both acceptance and pleasure.

- “The Lastmaker,” Performance Review in Theatre Journal, Vol. 60, No. 4 (2008)

Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford University, 2010-2011

Dissertation Research Grant, Drama Department, Stanford University,  2007

FLAS Fellowship for Foreign Language Study (Russian), 2005

Department Fellowship, Stanford University, 2004-2009

Kaspar T. Locher Creative Scholarship, Reed College, 2002