Artist & Scholar Residencies

The Living Earth Show & Raven Chacon
in residence March 11-15, 2019

In March 2019, composer and visual artist Raven Chacon and The Living Earth Show traveled to University of Michigan to workshop their new piece entitled Tremble Staves: a wordless water opera synthesizing mixed media installation, manipulation of natural and artificial light and sound, and theatrical performance depicting the urgent but approaching crisis of water shortage burdening the region from California to the Navajo deserts. The full piece will eventually be premiered in the flooded ruins of Sutro Baths, an early 20th century outdoor pool complex whose concrete remains are now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The "workshop performance" of the movement entitled Distributary took place in the Matthaei Botanical Gardens Conservatory, and featured members of the U-M Percussion Ensemble. 

Chacon’s opera connects narratives of the San Francisco Bay Area’s relationship with water to overlapping Navajo creation stories in which water figures prominently. The work will be performed by the virtuosic musicians of The Living Earth Show, utilizing amplified antlers, tape reels, effected guitars, and water as a dynamic percussion instrument. With this palette, Chacon combines electro-acoustic noises, traditional Navajo music, field recordings, and extended techniques rooted in the musical lineage of classical chamber music to craft a vital sonic and visual landscape. 

The opera presents the sacred element of water as a struck, manipulated, and amplified instrument–in reverence while simultaneously creating a sonic violence representative of continuing scarcity of this natural resource. The audience joins the performers in the environment, turning a public space into a sonic ecosystem in which all participants are surrounded by the element discussed and interrogated by the music. The intention is immersion; the opera immerses a congregation of audience members anchored in a pond of resonance; communally engaging in the work yet aware of their own complicity in the draining of the water. 

Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange & Dr. Carolyn Dunn
in residence February 16-23, 2019

Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange artists were in residence from February 16-23, 2019, culminating in two performances of a new play by Carolyn Dunn, Three Sisters. The Anishinaabe Theatre Exchange uses theatre to activate networks with Native communities in the Great Lakes region. The group is a consortium of people from various backgrounds working to promote dialogue about Indigenous culture and issues.

In this brand new tragicomedy by Carolyn Dunn, three sisters, long estranged from family, community, and one another, return home to the Tunica-Biloxi Reservation lands in Louisiana at the behest of their dying aunt as she makes preparations for her final journey home. Family tensions, simmering secrets, death and grieving all intersect with the loss of tradition, culture, spiritual formation, and love.

Poet, playwright, and scholar Carolyn Dunn was born in Southern California and is of Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Cajun, French Creole, and Tunica-Biloxi descent. Her scholarly work focuses on American Indian women’s literature and American Indian identity, and her play The Frybread Queen was produced by the Montana Repertory Theater in Missoula, Montana, and Native Voices at the Autry in Los Angeles. Her collections of poetry include Outfoxing Coyote (2001) and Echolocation: Poems and Stories from Indian Country L.A. (2013).

This residency was co-sponsored by the U-M Residential College, CEW+, Institute for Research on Women & Gender, SMTD Department of Theatre & Drama, Institute for Humanities, SMTD Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Department of American Culture.

JIT Exchange
in residence September 10-14, 2018

The University of Michigan’s Center for World Performance Studies and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, in collaboration with Zimbabwean Cultural Centre of Detroit, hosted five prominent artists and scholars from Detroit and Zimbabwe, in an exchange project that highlighted cross-cultural encounters and cultural organizing for political and social change.

The JIT Exchange was initiated through the Zimbabwean Cultural Centre in Detroit (ZCCD) with dancer/choreographers Haleem “Stringz” Rasul (Detroit) and Franco “Slomo” Dakha (Harare). The initial exchange began through a ZCCD “call and response” project where both artists collaborated virtually, dancing to the others music. Though the music was foreign - ghetto techno vs. rumba - they each danced in their own regional “jit” style. The uncanny parallel in historical narrative along with similarity of the footwork in the dance styles, led to the collaborative project, the JIT Exchange.

During the first phase of the project, Rasul spent six weeks in Harare, researching Zimbabwe “jit,” or “jiti” as pronounced in Shona, running workshops throughout the country on Detroit jit, and worked collaboratively with Franco Dakha. To bring the project full circle, ZCCD, in partnership with U-M, invited Dakha, guitarist Mono Mukundu, filmmaker Kumbulani Zamuchiya and cultural historian Plot Mhako, to to do Michigan-based residencies in 2018 and 2020. During the 2018 residency, Haleem Rasul served as a King•Chavéz•Parks Visiting Professor, participating in panel discussions, class visits and dance workshops. Rasul spearheaded a collaborative project in which dancers choreographed to music created by Zimbabwean guitarist Mono Mukundu and student musicians from the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, allowing the cultural exchange to expand even further across disciplines. Drawing inspiration from from post-colonial theorist Homi Bhaba’s Third Space, the JIT Exchange allows for artistic exploration in the liminal territory created in cross-cultural encounter, “which gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.”  

Watch a highlight reel from the 2018 JIT Exchange Residency here.

This residency was co-sponsored by the African Studies Center, King•Chavéz•Parks Visiting Professors Program and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, U-M Residential College, U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Yissy García & Bandancha
in residence February 8-12, 2018

University of Michigan Center for World Performance Studies hosted the sensational young Cuban drummer, Yissy García and her band Bandancha from February 8-12, 2018. The culmination of this four day residency was a performance at the Michigan League Ballroom at 8pm on Friday, February 9.

Growing up the daughter of famed drummer Bernardo García in Cayo Hueso, a neighborhood in Havana considered the cradle of rumba and Afro Cuban rhythms, Yissy García was already immersed in the tradition when she discovered jazz as a teenager. But the founding of her own band, Bandancha, was rooted in a desire to see people dance to her music. In her words, “The reason I put this band, this fusion, together is because I love to see people dancing, enjoying themselves and ignoring that chip that says that jazz is not for dancing.” To accomplish this task, she recruited well known Cuban DJ El Jigue, accomplished in the hip hop art of scratching, who plays live with the rest of the musicians in the group. Not only do Yissy & Bandancha exemplify the adaptation of traditional music to new forms and younger audiences, but also the adaptation of technology to a new performance environment.

The residency included class visits across several U-M schools and departments, a panel discussion on gender in Cuban performance practices and music workshops open to the entire community. The ensemble also performed at the Carr Center in Detroit on Sunday, February 11 at 3pm.

Watch a highlight reel from the Yissy García & Bandancha residency here.

This residency was co-sponsored by the U-M Residential College, U-M Center for the Education of Women, U-M Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, U-M Vice Provost for Global Engagement & Interdisciplinary Academic Affairs, U-M Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation and U-M Institute for Research on Women & Gender.

National Theatre of Ghana
in residence September 12-17, 2017

University of Michigan Center for World Performance Studies (CWPS) hosted the National Theatre of Ghana in residence from September 12-17, including a series of open air performances of 10 Blocks on the Camino Real, by Tennessee Williams. In this one-act play, the company－better known by the name “Abibigromma” in Ghana－ integrated song, dialogue and dance to tell the story of how the American hero Kilroy enters the pantheon of heroes by losing his innocence. In addition to outdoor performances in the Diag, Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, Ypsilanti Depot Town Farmer’s Market and CMAP Detroit, the members of the ensemble visited classes in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Rackham and the Residential College. They also conducted two public master classes, and workshops with high school aged students at Ann Arbor Community High School and Mosaic Youth Theater Detroit.

Watch a highlight reel from the National Theatre of Ghana residency here.

This residency was co-sponsored by the African Studies Center, Carrie Morris Arts Production, International Institute, Residential College, and the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

Maha-Laya ft. T H Subash Chandran & Ganesh Kumar
in residence April 11-13, 2017

Master percussionists T H Subash Chandran and his former student Ganesh Kumar traveled to Ann Arbor with their five-piece ensemble for a three day residency at the University of Michigan, including a final performance at Rackham Auditorium, which also featured performers from the U-M Department of Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation in a transcultural collaborative performance. While on campus, the artists attended classes in the fields of Performance Studies, Art History and Asian Culture, and also conducted a percussion master class at the Residential College.

Watch the concert at Rackham Auditorium here.

Yamakiya Taiko Ensemble 
in residence March 20 - 25, 2016

Organized by Erik Santos (U-M Associate Professor of Composition and Performing Arts & Technology), Toko Shiiki-Santos (Video Director), and Brian Sole (Director, Raion Taiko, Great Lakes Taiko Center), and co-sponsored by the Center for World Performance Studies and the Center for Japanese Studies, we welcomde the Yamakiya Taiko Ensemble to the University of Michigan between March 20 - 25, 2016. During their stay, the Yamakiya Ensemble will conducted taiko workshops at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. The Yamakiya Ensemble are also performed a free concert on Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 7:00 pm at the Power Center. In addition to the concert, there was a free film screening of the movie "Threshold: Whispers of Fukushima" at Stamps Auditorium on Thursday, March 24, 2016, followed by a brief post-concert by Yamakiya Taiko.

Prof. Kofi Opoku (Africa University College of Communications-Ghana)
in residence April 4 - 6, 2016

Prof. Kofi Opoku presented the lecture, "Water to Swallow the Pill of Wisdom: Humour in African Proverbs" for the DAAS Africa Workshop in April 2016. Professor Kofi Asare Opoku was a Research Fellow in Religion and Ethics at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana (1967-1994), when he retired. He is the author of Speak to the Winds: Proverbs from Africa (1975); West African Traditional Religion(1978); Healing for God’s World: Remedies from Three Continents, with Kim Yong Bock & Antoinette Wire (1990); Hearing and Keeping: Akan Proverbs (1997); Togbi Adawuso Dofe: Mami Water in the Eve Tradition,with Kathleen O’Brien Wicker (2007); Healing and Prophecy at Mehu: The Life and Work of Prophet Jenasman Kwadwo Amoaforo, with Kathleen O’Brien Wicker and Margaret Naiandrina Streetor (2012), and many articles in learned journals.

Seprewa (Akan Harp) Master, Osei Korankye
in residence April 4 - 7, 2016

CWPS welcomed Osei Korankye to the University of Michigan for multiple class visits across campus. Osei Korankye is the captivating flag bearer of Ghana’s seperewa tradition. The seperewa is the harp of the Akan people of Ghana and has its roots  in the Sahelian north. The instrument prospered for centuries, beginning as a court instrument for Asante kings from where it diffused into village life among various Akan groups. As guitar playing spread from the coast in the early 1900s, it took on the musical style of the seperewa while replacing its role in performances. These days, the seperewa is a fading voice in Ghana’s vibrant musical landscape.