Brynn Shiovitz

Brynn Shiovitz is a writer, scholar, educator, and dancer based in Los Angeles. She is the author of Behind the Screen: Tap Dance, Race, and Invisibility During Hollywood’s Golden Age (Oxford, 2023), which explores a history of audible blackface and more covert forms of racial masquerade in live action film and animation during the 1930s and 1940s. In particular, the book explores how tap dance and technology helped to mask racial caricature and ultimately, in combination, enabled films to sidestep Production Code guidelines. Her dance scholarship has been featured on NPR, the BBC, and Newsweek.