Mbongeni N. Mtshali has a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. He currently Heads the Theatre Section in the Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. Mtshali is a multidisciplinary performance practitioner, working across a range of disciplines including dance and movement composition and performance, animation and puppetry, and site-specific performance installation among others. Recent professional recognitions include The Standard Bank Silver Ovation Award and the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards for his achievements in directing and performance-making. Mtshali’s primary research interests, which animate both his practical and theoretical enquiries, are in black queer/femme performance in South Africa as well as Africa and its diaspora more broadly. He is particularly interested in how the unruly aesthetics of black queer/femme performance challenge nationally sanctioned performance repertoires and the national frameworks of African respectability, cultural intelligibility, and ethnonational belonging in which they are vested. He has more recently turned to thinking about queer genealogies of African decolonial world-making in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean.