Franz Anton Cramer is a freelance dance critic, author and theorist. Born in 1962, he trained and worked as a classical dancer and mime in France before studying languages, Latin literature and theatre in Berlin. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. degree. His dissertation research entitled Der unmögliche Körper was on the French actor and theoretician of bodily expression, Etienne Decroux. In 2003/2004 he was the acting executive director of the Tanzarchiv in Leipzig and since 2004 is a project research collaborator there. As well as contributing regularly to newspapers and periodicals including the Frankfurter Rundschau, Theater der Zeit and Performance Research, he gives lectures and seminars on various dance related topics for universities and dance academies in Germany, France, Estonia, and the Netherlands. He currently holds a fellowship from the French Ministry of Culture at the Centre national de la danse in France.