Dr. Lucille Toth

Trained in contemporary dance in France, Dr Toth's research interests lie at the intersection of dance, literature, medical humanities, gender, and migration studies. She is the author of Danses et pandémies. Du SIDA à la COVID-19, which traces the links between contamination and dance in France and beyond in order to challenge contemporary cultural, political and artistic metaphors about movement. She recently co-edited with Dr. Eftihia Mihelakis Embodied Narratives in the Health Humanities and Literary Studies (University of Toronto Press 2025), which examines the possibilities and limitations of embodied narratives through somatic experiences, challenging dominant perspectives on health, illness, and medicalization.

In addition to being a scholar, she is also a choreographer and the founder and artistic director of On Board(hers), a dance project amplifying the testimonies of individuals in migration. As part of this project, Lucille Toth also gave a TEDxTalk in 2019 entitled “Yes she has an accent. Why don’t you?”

Dr. Toth also collaborates with local artists. Notably, she directed and performed in Laura Larson’s series of photographs City of Incurable Women, that challenges medical and cultural myths on women and hysteria. She is currently working with Iranian artist Parvaneh Hosseini on two staged performances, honoring the traditional Persian storytelling practice parde-khani (curtain-reading).