Graduate Fellows

Olivia Cirisan
MM in Percussion Performance

Olivia Cirisan is a percussionist, teacher, singer/songwriter, composer and producer based in Ann Arbor, MI. Currently, she is pursuing her M.M. in Percussion Performance at U of M, where she also received her Bachelor’s degree in 2023. Olivia loves making music of any kind, but particularly has a passion for contemporary, chamber, electroacoustic and electronic music. Olivia performs locally in the Ann Arbor / Ypsilanti area with various groups including her percussion/electronic music duo VIRID, her new music sextet FLYDLPHN, and her percussion trio Brain Pocket. In addition to being a performer and co-director of various ensembles, she is a co-producer of the concert series VIRID and Friends based in Ann Arbor. Olivia has been playing Indonesian gamelan for about 2 years, and through CWPS plans to study various types of gamelan in Bali, including gender wayang, selonding, and Balinese angklung.

Kiana Cook
MFA in Dance

Kiana "KC" Cook is a dance, emcee, and looping artist. She is a MFA in Dance student at UMich. KC studies street dance cultures in the African diaspora including Breaking, Krump, Hip Hop Freestyle, Chicago Footwork, and House. Her practice has engulfed curating events, emceeing shows, entering dance battles, performing, and teaching around the world including Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, and Malaysia. Most notably, KC debuted a dancework entitled, "WORTHY: A Dance (PRO)duction on Being," in the First Annual Fringe Festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand (2020). From 2021, she produced Krump-specific events "Friends of Chi Buck I & II (2021/2022)" and "WECAMEFROMHERE (2022)," in her chosen home of Chicago. She has helped cultivate the Krump community in Chicago since 2017 and is in the Kautionz Krump family based in the Midwest. Her research interests include how street dance forms serve as a tool of empowerment in the communities they originated in.

Lola Gallo
Ph.D in Romance Languages and Literatures

Lola Gallo is a writer, editor and translator from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They are the author of *buena leche*, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Ministry of Labor. In 2017, the Hay Festival (UK) included them in Bogotá 39, a list comprehending the thirty-nine best Latin American writers under the age of forty. Currently a student at the Romance Languages and Literatures Ph.D. program, they hold MFAs from the University of Iowa and the University of Texas at El Paso. As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, Lola’s research focuses on drag performance as a site of political action in its potential to destabilize dominant notions of gender and sexuality.

Marthe Djilo Kamga
Ph.D in Romance Languages and Literatures

Marthe Djilo Kamga is a Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr and Cesar Chavez visiting Professorof visual Arts of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor USA. She is one of the founders and director of the festival Massimadi of Brussel. In 2016 she created and performed an autobiographical one woman show: Angalia Ni Mimi, Therapy of a Thwarted artist, as well as a photo documentary named Sikiliza, My body Speaks to you. In 2017 She directed the documentary Vibrancy of Silence: A Discussion with My Sisters, in 2020 Marthe directed Zurura Zurura : A Smile Blooms. Her last workpiece is a documentary about black LGBTQ+people in living Belgium (Black LGBTQ+, Here we are). Nourished by an academic and professional journey first STEM-oriented and later more social-oriented. She perceives herself more as an artist in an ongoing healing process based on self-therapy. She constantly wonders whether one life will be enough to fulfill her curiosity.

Paige Madden
DMA in Percussion Performance

Paige is a percussionist and educator who has performed and taught throughout the United States. She is originally from Oregon, where she received her undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon, but more recently lived in Florida to receive her masters degree from the University of Central Florida. She enjoys a myriad of genres within the field of percussion, from drumline to concert percussion to world music. Currently pursuing her doctorate in Percussion Performance at the University of Michigan, Paige’s research as a CWPS Graduate Fellow is centered around steel band music. After first being exposed to steel band music during her masters studies, Paige was intrigued by not only the unique sound of the steel pan, but its historical origins as well. Her research will take her to Trinidad and Tobago, where the steel pan originated, to broaden her understanding of the culture and style of this lively genre of music.

Rachel Richards
MM in Percussion Performance

Rachel Richards is a percussionist currently in her first year of master's studies at the University of Michigan, where she studies with professors Douglas Perkins and Ian Antonio. Rachel earned her bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with professor Michael Burritt. At Eastman, Rachel served as a board member of OSSIA New Music, a student-run organization dedicated to showcasing the works of contemporary composers. She was also a recipient of Eastman’s Arts Leadership Program Certificate. Rachel's vision for her career is one of global exploration and artistic innovation. She aspires to captivate audiences worldwide as both a soloist and chamber musician, while pushing the boundaries of percussion repertoire through commissioned works that showcase the virtuosic potential of percussionists. Rachel's journey is driven by a profound desire to contribute her unique voice to the ever-changing world of classical contemporary music. This summer, Rachel eagerly anticipates her journey to Japan as a CWPS fellow, where she will immerse herself in the study of Japanese marimba performance and pedagogy.

Timothy Tsang
MFA in Dance

Timothy Tsang is a queer Chinese-American dance educator, performer & choreographer. Born in Chicago, IL, Tsang began his dance journey in Shanghai, China, where he started taking classes in street dance styles at a local studio. After a decade in Shanghai, he returned to the Chicago suburbs to complete high school and obtained his BA in Dance from Columbia College Chicago. Many of Tsang’s choreographic endeavors since have centered around inquiries into identity, contributing to a deeper connection with cultural narratives that shape his identity as a queer Chinese-American artist. Currently, Tsang is a graduate student at the University of Michigan, focusing his studies on exploring the intersections between cultures, identities, and dance, with the goal of further developing a multidisciplinary practice and refining his voice as a Queer Chinese-American artist.

David Wang
MM in Percussion Performance

David Wang is an American percussionist and educator based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Michael Burritt and also earned the prestigious Performer’s Certificate. David has won first prizes at the 2020 China International Percussion Online Competition in both Marimba Solo and Snare Drum Solo divisions. David was also selected as a percussion winner of the 2023 Yamaha Young Performing Artists and was invited to perform in the winner’s concert in June of that year. He participated in the 2021 Chautauqua Summer Music Festival and in the following year, was a front ensemble member of the Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps in 2022. David is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Percussion Performance at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance where he is a graduate instructor of percussion.

2023 Graduate Fellows

Gloria Sitsope Ahlijah
MFA in Dance

Gloria Ahlijah is a dancer and choreographer from Ghana, West Africa and concurrently pursuing a Master’s in Fine Arts degree in Dance. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Ghana, School of Performing Arts where she trained in West African Traditional Dance, African Contemporary dance, Kizomba and Afrobeat. Her interest is to explore the evolution and assimilation of African dance in the Diaspora, and how these dances help Black Americans build connection and identity with Africa.

Simranpreet Anand
MFA Stamps Art & Design

Simranpreet Anand is an artist, curator, and cultural worker creating and working on the unceded territories of
the Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo peoples (Surrey, BC) and the lands of the Anishinaabeg – The Three Fire Confederacy of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations, as well as the Wyandot Nation (Ann Arbor, MI). She holds a BFA Honours in Visual Arts along with a second major in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. Her art practice interrogates the so-called neutral audience in multicultural society. To accomplish this, she uses materials —particularly textiles, language, performative gestures, and photographs —that resonate beyond the typical art gallery context. Anand’s works are meant for multiple audiences with different frames of cultural and/or artistic reference. Her practice is informed by familial and community histories, often engaging materials and concepts drawn from the histories of Punjab and the Punjabi diaspora and the ways in which they have been disrupted by colonialism and forced migration. The reclamation of cultural practice in her work interrogates colonial theft, cultural propaganda, and forces of global capitalism.

Xin Yi Chong
MM in Percussion Performance

Xin Yi Chong is a percussionist from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Percussion Performance and Chamber Music at the University of Michigan. As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, she is exploring the traditional Malay music of Malaysia through means of percussion with hopes to feel more connected to her home country and her heritage.

Sreyashi Dey
MSW

Sreyashi Dey is currently an MSW student at the University of Michigan's School of Social Work, specializing in the clinical pathway and training as a psychotherapist. She is a classical Indian dancer in the Odissi style, and previously in Bharatanatyam. She is the founder and artistic director of Akshara, an Ann Arbor based multi-arts organization that produces the annual Rasa Festival. Apart from several cities in the US, Sreyashi has performed in Europe, Asia and India. In addition to performing traditional classical dance, in her own work, she thoughtfully re-examines and re-interprets stories and characters in her choreographies through a lens of privilege, oppression and marginalization. Her work has been critically acclaimed, including the New York Times, as well as in media in India. Sreyashi is also the founder of Sparsh, an Ann Arbor non-profit that established and supported a pediatric heart surgery program at a community hospital in India for disadvantaged children, and works in the area of mental health. Sreyashi’s educational background includes a Master's degree in Economics and an MBA. Alongside her dance, she has had parallel careers in marketing, University of Michigan administration and non-profit.

Sunhong Kim
Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology, Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies

Sunhong Kim is an ethnomusicologist and a multi-wind instrumentalist (piri/taepyeongso/danso/saenghwang). She is currently in a doctoral program at the Department of Musicology at U of M. Her research primarily centers gender hierarchy and power relations in court/folk music ensembles in South Korea. Her current interest has expanded to a sub-genre of popular music which combines with South Korean traditional music.

James Koo
MM in Percussion Performance

James Koo is a vibrant performer and dedicated artist. He is the 2023 winner of the University of Michigan Concerto Competition and the Eugene Bossart Prize. In 2022 he took second place in the Black Swamp Multi Percussion Competition and was also awarded "Best Performance by an Asian composer at the Chicago International Music Festival in 2021. He is currently a Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan SMTD pursuing his Masters in Percussion Performance. Prior to studying in the States, he studied traditional Chinese percussion for a decade under Yim Hok Man/閻學敏 where he specialized in the Pai gu/Chinese Tom-toms. His current research focuses on ensemble Taiko and drawing cross-cultural parallels between traditional Japanese and Chinese music.

Sreya Muthukumar
MFA in Dance

Sreya Muthukumar is a multifaceted performing artist who believes in using art to spread joy and healing. A dancer, musician, and actor, Sreya began her dance training in Bharatanrityam at age 6. She is also trained in Odissi, Bollywood and hip-hop dance styles. As an instructor, she uses her unique blend of artistic experiences to provide holistic dance training. Sreya facilitates workshops that help people reconnect with their bodies through movement and meditation. A singer and songwriter, she was the lead vocalist of arena rock band Shorthand, and is currently working on her solo music project. Additionally, Sreya works as an actor, and has appeared in ads, short films, plays and a web series on Amazon Prime. She received a liberal arts education at Ashoka University, where she studied English Literature and Performing Arts. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Dance at the University of Michigan, where she hopes to synthesise her artistic experiences and make interdisciplinary work.

Fitz Neeley
MM in Composition

Ancel ‘Fitz’ Neeley (b. 2000) is a composer, percussionist, improviser, producer, and videographer who has written a variety of solo, chamber, electronic, and multimedia works. Fitz's compositions blend text, visuals, and theatrics and often take inspiration from cinematography and screenwriting to create immersive environments for the audience. As a performer Fitz has been working on commissioning new multimedia works for solo percussion. Fitz is a student of Tabla drumming in which he studies improvisation and verbal/rote pedagogy.

Kara Roseborough
MFA in Dance

Kara Roseborough is a multi-disciplinary artist specializing in dance, creative writing, and theatre. She is currently a Dance MFA Candidate, Graduate Student Instructor, and Rackham Merit Awardee at the University of Michigan. Previously, Kara was the Artistic Director, of the Evanston Dance Ensemble 2 (ede2). She is certified to teach Cecchetti Grades I-IV and holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Utah. After graduating, she danced with Charleston City Ballet, The Ruth Page Civic Ballet of Chicago, South Chicago Dance Theatre, Studio5 and the New Dances Festival through Thodos Dance Chicago and DanceWorks Chicago. She has also performed with Pittsburgh Public Theatre and Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre and has also written plays for Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre’s holiday series and its “Pop-Up Theatre” series. In 2020, Kara served on the founding committee of Dancers Amplified, and from 2020-2022, she was on staff with the educational equity program Books & Breakfast. She has presented choreography across the United States and most recently choreographed on the Dutch National Ballet. Her piece “Shadow and Echo” was featured in Dutch National Ballet’s Black Achievement Month celebration. Kara’s current research involves investigating the many intersections between dance and language through Black and African diasporic narratives as well as the decolonization of ballet culture and narratives.

Jonathan Taylor
MM in Improvisation

As a percussionist, composer, and improviser, Jonathan Barahal Taylor treasures the liminal feeling that intersects deafening silence and unrelenting noise. His drumming utilizes “carefully crafted chaos” [Midwest Action] and possesses “the rare ability to drive a band with constantly shifting rhythmic and melodic patterns … without ever overpowering the group” [Semja Review]. This sensibility informs his original projects and collaborative pursuits, which include the art rock band Saajtak, Teiku, which reimagines his family’s unique ancestral Jewish melodies in a creative music context, Mover, a modular suite of graphic scores, and his yet unnamed solo drum and electronics project. He has performed with such luminaries of creative music as Wadada Leo Smith, Angelica Sanchez, John Lindberg, Michael Formanek, Tomeka Reid, Dave Liebman, Jaribu Shahid, and James Cornish, and has played at the Jazz Gallery in New York, the Detroit Jazz Festival, Edgefest, DC Jazz Fest, the IASJC in Cape Town, and Namba Bears in Osaka. Additionally, Taylor maintains study of Hindustani classical music on tabla.

Asa Willoughby
PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures

Asa is a PhD student in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. His research focuses on South Asian languages and diasporas. In particular he works on diaspora theory and language maintenance, seeking to understand experiences of South Asian diasporicity, primarily in Britain and Europe. He works most closely with Punjabi language and the Sikh diaspora. His research also seeks to understand the formation of spoken Punjabi, with the intention of creating pedagogical frameworks around this.
He is also trained in the Indian classical dance forms of Kathak and Bharatanatyam, through his work he seeks to understand the diasporic potential and expressions of these dance forms.

2022 Graduate Fellows

Annette Beauchamp
PhD in English & Education

Annette Beauchamp examines how Schools of Education can become sites for advancing environmental justice education through literature, performance, and the arts. She is a student in the Joint Ph.D. Program in English and Education.

Nolan Ehlers
MM in Percussion Performance

Nolan Ehlers (he/him) is a percussionist versed in a variety of genres, currently pursuing a master’s degree in Percussion Performance and Chamber Music. Nolan is a student of batá drumming, having studied in Matanzas, Cuba on multiple occasions. His research interest is the relationship between music, dance, and religion in Afro Cuban culture, with emphasis on its manifestation in New York City.

Godfrey Lubuulwa
MM in Improvisation and Music Education

Godfrey Lubuulwa (He) is a composer and Jazz Pianist from Uganda, East Africa, concurrently pursuing a Masters of Music in jazz improvisation and a Masters in Music Education at the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Music Degree from Makerere University. His research project examines the intersection of indigenous and foreign musical materials that shape part of Uganda’s jazz voice, and how such musical intersections shape power and gender dynamics within Uganda’s music education sector. Godfrey’s music is characteristically Ugandan at its roots with its leaves and branches expanding into jazz and other music styles. He employs Ugandan traditional music instruments and sounds as raw materials for contemporary jazz performances. He also explores the spaces for jazz and fusion music pedagogical approaches in the Ugandan music education sector.

Sony Prosper
PhD in Information

Sony Prosper is a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan School of Information. His interests are broadly the social, cultural, and historical contexts of recordkeeping practices, archival practices, museum practices, intangible cultural heritage, and technology use, particularly in the U.S. and the Caribbean. His current research focuses on three areas: how members and volunteers of grassroots, community, and event-based archives conceptualize archival value and records and how these conceptualizations inform archival programs and practices in the U.S.; archival return and repatriation; and characteristics of Indigenous digital projects.

Njeri Rutherford
MFA in Dance

Njeri Rutherford is a dance artist, arts administrator, scholar, and entrepreneur from Detroit, MI. After receiving her B.A. in Dance and Communication Arts from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC. Njeri relocated to New York City to pursue her career as an artist where she discovered her zeal for arts administration and gained experience in development and fundraising through her work at Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, The Yard, Ephrat Aesherie Dance, and Movement Research. Njeri has danced professionally for Davalois Fearon Dance, Dance The Yard, The Wanda Project, and O’Toole and Dancers. She has choreographed and performed in many notable venues including Charlotte Dance Festival, Dixon Place, and BRIC. She is the owner of The Barre, an artist services company whose mission is to bridge the gap between Black and artists of color and proper funding, resources, and notoriety. Njeri is currently an MFA candidate in SMTD where she is pursuing her Masters in Dance.

Gavin Ryan
MA in Media Arts

Gavin Ryan is a musician pursuing a MA in Media Arts and a DMA in Percussion Performance. A native of Payson, Utah, he has performed and taught throughout the United States, as well as Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Haiti and China. He performs and records regularly with groups as diverse as Utah Symphony, Book On Tape Worm, MT Pit, House of Lewis, NOVA Chamber Music, Salt Lake City 7, and Bones Jugs. From 2016-2017, Ryan was a Fulbright Fellow researching gamelan selonding in Bali, Indonesia. He founded and directs Gamelan Madu Kencana, a community Balinese gamelan based in Provo. He received the inaugural Utah Performing Arts Fellowship in 2020 from the Utah Division of Arts and Museums. His research will focus on the history and historiography of rare and ancient styles of gamelan in Indonesia.

2021 Graduate Fellows

Gabrielle Bernal
PhD in Educational Studies

Gabrielle Elizabeth Bernal is a former special education teacher, currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies with a focus on teaching and teacher education at the School of Education. Her research interests center on teacher education, mathematics education, teachers' and students' mathematical multimodal discourse, and embodied experiences. Her work is rooted in performance in formal and informal math learning spaces in the community, at home, and within schools.

Yvonne Garcia
PhD in Higher Education

Yvonne Garcia is a third year PhD student at the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE) with a focus on Academic Affairs and Student Development. She is interested in how knowledge systems are and become racialized and the role of higher education systems in maintaining racialization. Through decolonization of scholarship she hopes to deconstruct current metrics and standards that diminish, devalue, and distort cultural and racial ways of knowing. Yvonne enjoys writing stories about her family and poetry about love of food, self, friendship, family, and romantic love.

Yucong Hao
PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures

Yucong Hao is a doctoral candidate in Asian Languages and Cultures. Her research focuses on sound studies, intermediality, international modernism, and Chinese socialist culture and literature. At CWPS, she hopes to explore how auditory aesthetics constitutes a critical component of the larger framework of performance. She is also a co-founder of the Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop series of "Understanding Media in Chinese Studies."

J’Sun Howard
MFA in Dance

J’Sun Howard (he/him) is a dancemaker and poet currently pursuing his MFA in Dance at the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. His choreographic and research interests include: Black Fugitivity and spatial politics, the practice of freedom, and architectural imagination, Japanese culture and Noh Theatre.

Alex Lepanto
MM in Improvisation

Alex Lepanto is a drummer from Montreal Canada, currently pursuing a Masters of Music in Improvisation at the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. His work aims to dive deep into the history of the drums to explore rhythm and percussion as a social and spiritual practice across cultures, as well as its relation to improvised music performance.

Marsae Mitchell
MFA in Dance

Marsae Mitchell (she/her) is an interdisciplinary performance artist, writer and educator specializing in dance and theater, currently pursuing an MFA at the School of Music Theater and Dance. Her artistic research interests include: African diasporic art history, the effects of location and climate on performance artists of the African diaspora and the mersion of concert and commercial dance.

Rhiannon Muncaster
PhD in German Languages and Literature

Rhiannon Muncaster (she/hers) is a lifelong German hip-hop enthusiast and polyglot working on her PhD in the German Languages and Literature program. Her research focuses on (self-)representations of Iranian-Germans and performances of gender (masculinity) and the “Oriental” Other in German rap. Rhiannon is additionally interested in Orientalism, multicultural identity construction, ethnomusicology, and horror.

Leela Riesz
PhD in Cultural Anthropology

Leela Riesz is a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology. Her current research asks what new articulations of Blackness are possible when Afrodescendientes (people of African descent) engage in an evolving Black-consciousness movement in Spain where anti-Blackness is longstanding yet characterized as merely an outcome of recent immigration. She is interested in how consciousness is both a personal and public project that asks Spanish audiences to confront the omnipresence of anti-Blackness in Spain and the conflation of Blackness and foreignness. Through her research, she seeks to provide an ethnographic account of the labor conducted by activists, namely their intellectual, cross-cultural, and historical modes of thinking and collaboration.

Soyoon Ryu
PhD in History of Art

Soyoon (she/her) is a writer and visual artist currently pursuing her PhD in History of Art. Her interests include modern and contemporary Asian art, decolonial thought, ecocriticism, performance studies, and the issue of form in socially-engaged and participatory practices.

Julianna Loera Wiggins
PhD in American Culture

Julianna Loera Wiggins (she/her) is a Doctoral Student in the Department of American Culture. Her research interests include: formations of Latina/Chicana identities, oral history and testimonio, social activism, and Latina/o/x Performance Studies.

Samantha Williams
Specialist in Music

Samantha Williams is a classically trained crossover artist who is committed to storytelling in various genres. Currently earning her Specialist in Music in Voice Performance, Sam is obsessed with art that inspires change and with sharing marginalized experiences with diverse audiences. She has researched performative race in the performing arts, specifically performative blackness in European opera. Her interests have culminated in her CWPS project, a theatrical song-cycle examining Patriotism from different American perspective.

2020 Graduate Fellows

Leonard Bopp
MM Program in Orchestral Conducting

Leonard Bopp (he/him) is a conductor, composer, and collaborator currently pursuing his masters degree in Orchestral Conducting at the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. His musical and research interests include: queer studies and LGBT history, performance studies, postcolonial theory and "world music" debates, ecocrticism, archives, and sound studies.

Meg Brennan
MM Program in Improvisation

Meg Brennan is a flutist and saxophonist who is currently pursuing her Masters in Improvisation in the department of Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation. She has had the opportunity to play with famous jazz artists like Christian McBride, Kenny Barron, Peter Bernstein, Jimmy Cobb, Ingrid Jensen, and Anat Cohen. Meg is interested in studying Carnatic music of Mysore, India, specifically the traditional methods of oral transmission and the melodic/rhythmic/improvisational elements of the raga as it relates to her own practice as a musician and educator. With a strong belief that improvisation plays a key role in the development of all creative artists, Meg's research will contribute to the body of knowledge surrounding various teaching methodologies.

Alfredo Cabrera
MM Program in Music Composition

Alfredo Cabrera is an accomplished composer, pianist, and violinist from Caracas, Venezuela. He has won multiple awards including 1st Place in the Lynn University Composition Competition and the Marshall Turkin Honors Award (2018-2019). Alfredo’s work is defined by his passion for Latin American music, classical music, political involvement, and social activism. He is an advocate and researcher of Venezuelan culture which he shares through his musical works. Alfredo is a student of Dr. Kristin Kuster at the University of Michigan where he is currently pursuing a Masters degree in composition and a certificate in performance studies.

Angela Schöpke Gonzalez
PhD Program in Information

Angela M. Schöpke Gonzalez is a dance theater artist, writer, curator, educator, and data analyst currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Michigan School of Information. Angela's work draws inspiration from deep investigations of history, civic engagement, policy perspectives, and emotional narrative, and is committed to making spaces for people to engage in dialogue about cultural identity questions.

Rebecca Hixon
PhD Program in English Language & Literature

Rebecca Hixon holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature from Knox College, where she first became interested in early modern drama, specifically Shakespeare. As a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, her research has centered on contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare plays, specifically those that evoke sometimes tense discussions concerning race, religion, gender, sexuality, and class. In her dissertation she considers how adaptations and appropriations represent, respond to, or change some of the more problematic content of these plays and the effect this has on the stories themselves. She examines live and filmed stage performances alongside films, novels, and graphic representations in order to explore the way we conceive of, recognize, and disseminate Shakespeare today, as teachers, readers, consumers, audiences, and scholars.

Mimi Owusu
PhD Program in Educational Studies

Mimi Owusu is pursuing a PhD in Educational Studies with a concentration in teaching and teacher education. For the past eight years, Mimi worked as an elementary school teacher, instructional coach, and teacher educator in Newark, NJ. A proud Ghanaian, Bronx native, she grew up experiencing the artistic beauty and genius of the Black diaspora. Her project seeks to capture this energy by using dance as a mechanism for sharing and understanding the experiences and perspectives of Black girls throughout the diaspora. This work is especially poignant given the marginalization that Black girls experience in schools. Her hope is that her experience travelling throughout the diaspora, specifically Ghana, Jamaica, New York, and Newark unveil stories about Black girls that help everyone, but especially educators, to see Black girls in all of their glory.

Hohner Porter
Masters Program in Percussion Performance & Chamber Music

Hohner Porter is a graduate student at the University of Michigan pursuing degrees in Percussion Performance and Chamber Music. Hohner has traveled to Trinidad and Tobago where he was a participant of the Youth Music Exchange, presenting masterclasses over Samba Reggae from Brazil as well as performing with the Pulse Percussion Ensemble in outreach concerts in local primary schools. In 2019, Hohner traveled to Ghana to study West African drumming through the Dagara Music Center. Hohner has been a member of numerous chamber ensembles including UTM Choro Ensemble, UTM Steelband, Vencedores, UTM Contemporary Music Group, World Percussion Ensemble, and other various large ensembles.

MaryEllen Rieck
PhD Program in Political Science

MaryEllen is a doctoral student in the PhD program in Political Science within the subfield of Political Theory. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Management from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Northeastern Illinois University, and she worked as a professional Stage Manager in Chicago for ten years. MaryEllen’s research interests revolve around the intersection of culture and politics as well as feminist theory, and she is particularly interested in theatre’s capacity to foster community and challenge ways of being together in society.

Imani Ma'at Taylor
MFA Program in Dance

Imani Ma'at AnkhmenRa Amen is a visionary, artist, dancer, choreographer, and photographer from Norfolk, VA. She has been trained in multiple dance styles including improvisation, experimental, hip-hop, modern, contemporary, and traditional West-African dance practices. Her primary focus is the study of traditional West-African dance and the various traditional rhythms know to this dynamic and complex dance genre. Through a combination of these dance practices, she produces many works with the intention of developing safe spaces while unifying the community and helping others develop higher consciousness through the performing and visual arts. Currently, Imani is working on obtaining her MFA in dance/choreography from the University of Michigan.

2019 Graduate Fellows

Lisa Decenteceo
PhD Program in Ethnomusicology

Lisa began as a piano student. In 2010, she earned a diploma in Music Education, and in 2012, a bachelor’s degree in musicology at the University of the Philippines. Presently, she is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her research interests include affect theory in ethnomusicological studies, the various iterations of the “folk” in American music from the 30s to the 70s, and the intellectual history of ethnomusicology. For her dissertation, she writes about the plural and conflicting expressions of indigeneity as examined in staged musical performances of indigenous expressive traditions and their surrounding socio-cultural and historical contexts. Lisa has taught courses on Philippine music and has worked as a teaching assistant for courses on Euro-American art music and U.S. popular music. She is a Fulbright scholar, and a recipient of the Glenn McGeoch Teaching Award and the Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award.

Photo Credit: Cy Abdelnour

Evan Haywood
MSI Program, School of Information

Evan Haywood is a musician and multimedia artist from Ann Arbor, MI. As a Master's student at the University of Michigan School of Information, he is interested in developing innovative research methods which incorporate socially progressive ideas from the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, documentary filmmaking, and cultural heritage preservation. His dream is to build a highly accessible internet archive of performing arts content from around the world, to bring connectivity and communication between distant populations.

For his Certificate in World Performance Studies, Evan will be conducting fieldwork for a research project in Jamaica. He will be meeting with elders in the Rastafarian and Maroon communities, recording video footage to preserve ritual performances and oral narratives, with a focus on anticolonial perspectives in Jamaican history. This material will be supplemented by a visit to the official Jamaica Records and Archives Department, which houses documents regarding these subjects dating back to the 1700's. At the conclusion of his fieldwork, Evan is planning to edit the footage he has collected into an ethnographic archival documentary film.

Sherry Lin
MFA Program in Dance

Sherry Lin is a graduate student at the University of Michigan pursuing an MFA in Dance. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a certified registered dietitian. She performed for several years with Chicago-based companies Hip Hop ConnXion Dance Company and Chicago Urban Dance Collective. Sherry has received scholarships and recognition for her work at the Word In Motion Urban Dance Festival in Los Angeles, Establish Your Empire Dance Showcase in Chicago, Dance Revolution Convention in North Carolina, and Project Dance Costa Rica. Combining both of her passions in dance and nutrition, she is interested in studying performance activism through dance and culinary arts forms. For her summer research, she will be going to Los Angeles, California and various cities in Taiwan to study and compare street dance culture between the U.S. and Taiwan. Furthermore, she will engage in ethnographic research among Taiwanese Indigenous communities.

Marjoris Regus
PhD Program in Music Education

Marjoris Regus is a doctoral student in Music Education. Prior to the University of Michigan,Marjoris received her Bachelor of Science in Music Education and Master of Music, SaxophonePerformance from The University of Utah. Following her Master of Music degree, Marjoris taught high school band, jazz, orchestra, choir, piano, music appreciation, and AP music theory in Salt Lake City, Utah for four years. As a graduate student, Marjoris has found interest in secondary instrumental methods, hip hop pedagogy, vernacular musicianship, and informal learning. This summer, Marjoris will be conducting research focusing on everyday performances and the diverse identities of hip hop artists in Japan, Germany, and England.

Jean Carlo Ureña Gonzalez
MM Program in Percussion Performance

Jean Carlo previously studied at the University of Hartford and National Conservatory of Music of Santo Domingo. He is currently the Graduate Student Instructor for the World Percussion Ensemble at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance. His Center for World Performance Studies research is centered around the diasporic lineage between the rhythms of folkloric music of the Dominican Republic and west and central Africa.

Mario Vircha
MFA Program in Dance

Mario Vircha is a Masters of Fine Arts candidate in the Department of Dance at the University of Michigan. He also has an MA in Dance of the National University of Costa Rica and was a formal member of the National Dance Company of Costa Rica from 2010-2018 where he served as assistant director, choreographer, and Professor of Contemporary Technique. Vircha has been resident artist in the departments of Modern Dance of the University of Utah and University of Georgia, and has been a guest choreographer and performer in CORE Concert Dance Company annual season performances, held in Athens-USA from 2008 to 2011 and 2016. He was invited as a guest artist by the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies of the University of Michigan in 2016. His works have been part of the repertoire of the National Dance Company and Dance Company Chamber Danza UNA, CR. He has toured as a dancer and teacher at festivals of dance in the US, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Argentina and Spain. Mario directs his own Choreographic project Mario VirchaDanza since 2011. Vircha’s MFA research focuses on emigrant artists and investigate what happens when a culture disperses as a result of political crisis.

2018 Graduate Fellows

Photo Credit Lydia Bittner

Megan Bascom
MFA Program in Dance

Megan Bascom is the Artistic Director of Megan Bascom & Dancers (MB&D), an NYC-based company, whose work is highly collaborative and relationship driven, involving memory, intimate interaction, and an overall commitment to expansive motion that expresses physical potential. Megan's MFA research focuses on kinesthetic empathy, awareness, and perception -- using physical expression to share, create and find common ground as a means of more fully understanding how we can relate to one another in this world, despite our differences. She has had work produced by Triskelion Arts, Gowanus Arts + Production, Center for Performance Research, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, and Dixon Place. As a dance educator, Megan has taught most recently at The Dance Complex, Le Danse Cité (Morocco), Dance Exchange, Barnard College, 100 Grand Dance, and as faculty at Gibney Dance Center. Read more about Megan's research here.

El Chen
MSW Program in Social Work

El Chen is an artist, musician, and performer from Shanghai, China. Since 2014, she has been facilitating theater and music workshops with incarcerated populations and refugee youths in Michigan. Currently a Master of Social Work student, El focuses her research on the role of performance in facilitating inter- and intra-community relations. Read more about El's research here.

Lenard Foust
MFA Program in Dance

Lenard J Foust, an MFA candidate in dance, holds a BSED in Dance Education from Central Connecticut State University. Lenard has recently toured as a dancer with the Ultimate Michael Jackson Experience performing since June 1st, 2016. Throughout the time of his undergraduate college career, he has worked with Elisa Monte Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/ The works and the Albano Ballet Dance Company. Lenard understands the importance of community engagement on and off the college campuses, and the necessity for widening the ground base in dance including audience building, teaching dance to children and working with diverse populations. This is evidenced in his teaching in varied venues such as private studios, community centers and public schools. Lenard is currently studying popular commercial dance styles, street jazz and jazz funk. He is also studying contemporary modern techniques, as well as improvisation and composition. Lenard would like to continue pursuing training to solidify his artistry. Read more about LJ's research here.

Kelly Hirina
MFA Program in Dance

Kelly Hirina recently returned to U-M after living and dancing professionally in the Netherlands for the past 17 years. She is currently attaining her MFA in Dance and is focused on the study of Fascia & Flow within the dance method Double Skin/ Double Mind, created by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, with whom she has worked. Within CWPS, Kelly hopes to look deeper into artistic practices that use oral tradition of transmission, as it is similar to her experience in DS/DM. Her interest lies in the memory body and its relationship to transferring dance material, rather than the current dependence upon modern recording devices, which she believes are not as detailed as the body that performs dance. Read more about Kelly's research here.

Masimba Hwati
MFA Program in Art & Design

Masimba Hwati is an experimental mixed media artist with 10 years teaching experience at Harare Polytechnic in Harare, Zimbabwe and 14 years of independent studio practice. Has facilitated several local and international workshops and projects in Southern Africa , Canada, France and the US. His work explores the transformation of indigenous knowledge systems and cultural resistance. He juxtaposes cultural objects and symbols with trivia and ephemeral mainstream symbols, employing found objects, performance and histories. His research has grown around explorations of postcolonial themes by re-appropriating objects and presenting them in new contexts. Hwati collects ideas and moments, altering and repositioning them in a contemporary setting. He holds a Certificate in Building on Indigenous Knowledge Systems for Community resilience from The Coady Institute, St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish. He is an honorary research fellow at Rhodes University Inn Grahamstown South Africa, and he is currently pursuing an MFA at the Stamps School of Art and Design University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Read more about Masimba's research here.

Traci Lombre
PhD Program in American Culture

Traci Lombre is a Ph.D. student in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, with a research focus on late 19th/early 20th century African American cultural history in the Midwest, the Harlem Renaissance, and the culture and history of the Kansas City jazz tradition. Traci has extensive experience in area studies, having worked at the U-M's African Studies Center from 2015-2017, after 11 years in graduate student affairs at the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In 2005, Traci was the recipient of the Joseph J. Malone Fellowship in Arab and Islamic Studies, awarded by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations in Washington, D.C., for travel to study the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She obtained her Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago in 2004, having focused on globalization, Arab foreign investment, and Arab migration. Traci holds A.B. degrees in Economics and Sociology from Smith College. Read more about Traci's research here.

Rebecca Selin
MA Program in Southeast Asian Studies

Rebecca Selin is a first year master's student in Southeast Asian Studies. Before coming to the University of Michigan, Rebecca studied Javanese gamelan and West Sumatran music as a student at Oberlin College and rehearsed with Lampung regional music student groups as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia. Rebecca is interested in exploring the impact of new and emerging online media on the performance of identity in Indonesia and its diaspora as a CWPS fellow. Read more about Rebeccas's research here.

Jeffrey Siegfried
DMA in Saxophone Performance

Jeffrey Siegfried is a saxophonist in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, studying performative heterophony. His CWPS project included research at the Yiddish Summer Weimar and Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt. Read more about Jeffrey's research here.

Kaleigh Wilder
MM Program in Improvisation

Kaleigh Wilder is a baritone saxophonist working towards a Masters in Improvisation in the department of Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation. She will conduct research this summer in Ghana, exploring different performance practices and traditions as they relate specifically to music, but also dance, through studying West African hand drumming. She hopes to experience and understand the essential roles music plays in West African culture, including how gender is negotiated and performed in performance practices. Read more about Kaleigh's research here.

Xiaoxi Zhang
PhD Program in Comparative Literature

Xiaoxi Zhang is a PhD student in Comparative Literature interested in Critical Translation Studies, Cultural Studies and comparative studies of literature and cultures from non-Western spaces. Zhang is also interested in exploring the performative aspects of different genres of writings, including academic essays, and seeks to incorporate the performative elements of the materials she studies into her own research and writings. Read more about Xiaoxi's research here.

2017 Graduate Fellows

Kiran Bhumber
MA Program in Media Arts

Kiran Bhumber is a media artist, composer, musician and educator from Vancouver, Canada. Her work examines emotions and memory through the physical nature of sound. Kiran constructs interactive installations and performance systems; allowing performers and audiences to embody these themes through multimodal states of awareness. As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, Kiran conducted research for the development of “ The Electronic Shawl” or “E-Shawl”, a wearable electronic textile that aims to envelop South Asian cultural identity, tradition, andmemory within the present digital realm.

AJ Covey
MM Programs in Percussion Performance and Chamber Music

As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, AJ Covey traveled to Karnataka, India and Bali, Indonesia to conduct preliminary research in musical pedagogy of non Western cultures. AJ’s research interests include the exploration of Eastern music pedagogy methods and ideas to help music teachers in the US cultivate a connection between musical study and self identity, love, life, culture, humanity, and Earth.

Laura-Ann Jacobs
PhD Program in Educational Studies

Laura-Ann Jacobs is a doctoral student in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. She explores how performance and expression can be integral parts of learning. The focus of her CWPS Graduate Fellow project is learning how local Hawaiians perform their local Hawaiian identities, and investigating how these performances of local Hawaiian identities counter, challenge, and disrupt the destination image of Hawaiian native culture.

Ruby MacDougall
PhD Program in Asian Languages & Cultures

Ruby MacDougall is a professional ballet and contemporary dancer with an MA in Chinese studies from the University of Hawaii, and almost a decade of experience engaging in intercultural exchange with Chinese dancers. Her current research looks at how identity and culture are embodied or resisted through the corporeal performance of ethnic minority dance forms in China.

Read more about Ruby's research here.

Ellen Myers
MA Program in Southeast Asian Studies

Ellen Myers entered the Masters Program in Southeast Asian Studies after previously studying Indonesian dance, gamelan, and living in Indonesia as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, she is exploring the ways in which Facebook contributes to new and imagined spaces of freedom or confinement for young Indonesians.

Sydney Shiff
MFA Program in Dance

Classically trained dancer and choreographer Sydney Schiff began rigorously studying and practicing Brazilian Zouk in 2016. During her CWPS summer research, she will conduct preliminary ethnographic field study of international influences on Brazilian Zouk dance movement and culture in Canada and Europe.

Adam Shead
MM Program in Improvisation

Adam Shead is an American Improviser, Percussionist, Composer, and Electronicist specializing in improvised and interdisciplinary performance. Adam has performed at renowned venues domestically and internationally such as The Jazz Showcase, Experimental Sound Studio, The Whistler, Bimhuis, and De Ruimte as well as performing at such festivals as The Present is Present in Amsterdam and The Chicago Jazz Festival. Adam has had the pleasure of performing with such musicians as Mary Oliver (ICP Orchestra), John Dikeman (William Parker, Joe McPhee), Jasper Stadhouders (Ken Vandermark, Andy Moor), and Ed Sarath; and is the founder of such groups as Dod Kalm, Adam Shead Octet, and The Adam Shead String Quartet. His current research looks at the way in which improvisational communities function and inform their meta-community from a Performance Studies perspective.

Read more about Adam's research here.

Fabiola Torralba
MFA Program in Dance

Fabiola Torralba is a choreographer, educator, and activist that is dedicated to the transformation and empowerment of our communities. With deep commitment of the power of story and the power of people coming together, she facilitates opportunities for movers of all backgrounds to create and engage in issues that affect their every day lives. Fabiola's current research focuses on Afro-Mestizo and Black (im)migrant identities in the southern coastal region of Mexico.

Alyssa Wells
PhD Program in Musicology

Alyssa Wells is a musicology PhD student whose primary research focuses on socialist realism in the German Democratic Republic. As a CWPS Graduate Fellow, she is also researching the performance and rehearsal practices of drum and bugle corps in Netherlands and Japan, seeking illuminate how members of the groups Jubal and the Indigoes understand their relationship to their drum corps and its members, the community in which they are based, and the drum corps community as it is conceived globally.

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