Faculty Publication and Research-Creation
Innovative Scholarship Meets Dynamic Creative Expression
The Department of Performing Arts faculty is a distinguished and dynamic cohort renowned for integrating rigorous academic research with vibrant creative practice. They are internationally recognized and award-winning leaders in their disciplines, producing significant scholarly publications across performance studies, ethnomusicology, theater, musicology, and film studies. They also create influential artworks, including musical compositions, theater productions, and multimedia projects, often exploring cultural and interdisciplinary themes. Through public performances, innovative digital media works, and influential scholarship, this collective exemplifies a profound commitment to exploring the intersections of academic inquiry, artistic expression, and social justice.
Shipping Out: Race, Performance, and Labor at Sea (University of Michigan Press, 2025)
Shipping Out explores the performance of Caribbean cruise ship staff, highlighting the racial, class, and gender dynamics at play. Through ethnography and archival materials, Gonzalez contrasts the experiences of contemporary cruise ship workers with those of historical merchant ship workers, shedding light on the complexities of freedom, enslavement, and home.
The Art of Care (The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, Mosaic Theater, 2024)
An uplifting celebration of our local community from a global perspective.
An all-star D.C. cast courageously invites you into their own worlds. Their riveting stories combine with the voices of caregivers, medical professionals, and everyday people to create a deeply personal and universally resonant theatrical event.
Featuring a powerhouse DC cast including Jabari Exum; Billie Krishawn; Raghad Makhlouf; William T. Newman, Jr.; Tuyết Thị Phạm; Susan Rome; and Tom Story. The play showcases original music composed and played live by Exum, the Lead Djembe player (African Drummer) for Marvel’s Black Panther 1 & 2.
Instrument of the State: A Century of Music in Louisiana’s Angola Prison (Oxford University Press, 2023)
2024 Music in American Culture Award, American Musicological Society
2024 Portia K. Maultsby Prize, Society for Ethnomusicology
“Utterly breathtaking. Instrument of the State deserves to reinvent its field as well as those adjacent to it.” Louis Chude-Sokei, author of The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics
“A major work of social, cultural, and academic achievement.” Wayne Kramer, the MC5
“Provocative and compelling… Harbert deftly navigates musical archive and oral history and, as he does so, he importantly tunes our attention to post-slavery carceral power.” Nicole Brittingham Furlonge, author of Race Sounds: The Art of Listening in African American Literature
Nadia (University of Iowa Press, 2023)
“From its very first sentence, Christine Evans’s Nadia sweeps the reader up in a riveting tale of war, survival, love, and trauma. The story is set in London, just after the Balkan Wars, but is less about fighting than about the way any war forces those caught in it to face who they really are, what they believe, and what they will do about it. Nadia is immensely rewarding to read, touching both the intellect and the heart.” Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season
“Secrets choke two London-dwelling refugees from the former Yugoslavia in Christine Evans’s startling, sensitive novel… a poetic, unflinching novel that centers the victims and ripple effects of the Bosnian War.” Michelle Anne Schingler, ForeWord
Three Marys (Presented by the Sydney Opera House, A Green Room Music production, 2023)
Andrée Greenwell and Christine Evans
“Exile and refuge-seeking find their contemporary parallel in this original work, inspired by a medieval legend: the Three Marys escaped persecution by sailing from Judea to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer” Caroline Wilkins, Australian Music Centre
“Inspired by a moving true story, a new opera illuminates different aspects of the never-ending human narrative of injustice, inequality and loss” Deborah Jones, Limelight
“… a chimerical and gestural beast, difficult to pin down and determined to weave its biblical heritage with the torment of contemporary immigration politics.” Hamish Lewis, Honi Soit
Black Performance Theory (Duke University Press, 2023)
Thomas F. DeFrantz and Anita Gonzalez, eds.
“This is theory that dances… Black Performance Theory convenes 14 scholars and practitioners of Africana performance and bids them dance and groove across national, hemispheric, oceanic, planetary, disciplinary, epochal, formal, and methodological boundaries in pursuit of blackness in motion… What results is a marvelously capacious contribution to critical black/performance studies.” La Marr Jurelle Bruce, TDR: The Drama Review
“… revealing black performance on its own terms.” Christy Adair, Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research
“… promises critical and analytical tools for understanding the increased social protest and activism against police brutality.” Mlondolozi B. Zondi, Text and Performance Quarterly
Erie County Smile (PBS, 2023)
Erie County Smile is a satirical short film which parodies Paris By Night (PBN), a popular Vietnamese-language variety show. Van, who grew up working in her family’s nail salon, dedicates this film to the children of immigrants who spent their childhoods behind doors labeled “employees only.”
Il zelo animato overo Il gran profeta Elia (Società Editrice di Musicologia, 2023)
This critical edition is based on the autograph manuscript score, parts, and libretto of Francesco Mancini’s opera, Il zelo animato (1733). Created as a pedagogical model for his students in the Neapolitan conservatory Santa Maria di Loreto, the opera illuminates the social, artistic, and educational cultures of the capital city, occupying a distinctive position in the composer’s oeuvre and contemporary practices.
Inter Personal (Sleepy Cat Records, 2023)
Andy Stack and Jay Hammond
“… the album is patient but not static, and as one part mutates and refracts, the response is so immediate as to feel nearly composed.” Jordan Lawrence, Indy Week
brea(d)th (2023)
premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra
“Carlos Simon’s brea(d)th, commemorating the murder of George Floyd… aims to influence thought and discussion through honesty and direct musical communication.” David Allen, The New York Times
“… honoring George Floyd and reminding the world that… ‘brea(d)th,’ a landmark classical-and-spoken-word album… the struggle now has an extended soundtrack” Adrienne Samuels Gibbs, Forbes
Enacting the Circle (Lobe, Strathcona Spatial Sound Society, 2022)
Jay Hammond and Quran Karriem
Enacting the Circle is a participatory piece for 4D audio by Jay Hammond and Quran Karriem, with live 4D sculpting by Ian Wyatt. The piece combines a vibroacoustic attunement exercise, the synthball designed by Karriem and Rebecca Uliasz, and an improvised performance with Karriem on trombone, Hammond on electric guitar, and Wyatt on live 4D sculpting. The piece explores the relationship between embodiment and social structure in human improvisation.
i can’t swim (The Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery, 2022)
In a series of looping videos and installations, Tran Nguyen depicts how trauma, retold, leads to passages of folklore. What happens when the instruction manual, on how to survive, gets lost in the trans-generational gap? What will we make of ourselves and what does it look like to search for purpose within our identities?
Requiem for the Enslaved (Decca, 2022)
2023 GRAMMY nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition
“What does it mean if your body was never free?… What happens to the soul of the slave if the shackles release?… Simon’s Requiem for the Enslaved combines classical, jazz, spiritual, and blues instrumentals, with animated recitation by rapper and spoken-word artist Marco Pavé on nine of its 17 sections.” Jason Victor Serinus, San Francisco Classical Voice
“Carlos Simon puts a contemporary twist on the Catholic Requiem Mass… holds a major university’s truths up to the light.” NPR, Deceptive Cadence
“… a moving 10-movement liturgical meditation… a necessary and enthralling piece of music” Michael Andor Brodeur, The Washington Post
“… powerful and utterly authentic.” Charles T. Downey, Washington Classical Review
Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski (2022)
Clark Young and Derek Goldman
Best Narrative, Woodstock Film Festival
Changemaker Award, Woodstock Film Festival
Best Fiction Feature, Montclair Film Festival
NY TIMES CRITICS PICK: “Starring a masterly David Strathairn, it brings Karski’s recollections to anguished life. The script’s strategic meting out of revelation and memory adds to the emotional impact… evokes not only the contours of Karski’s own eventful biography, but also the horrors and privations of the war, with a particular emphasis on the failure of Allied governments to acknowledge and intervene in the murder of Europe’s Jews.” Alexis Soloski, The New York Times
“This remarkable, all-too-relevant story is hauntingly brought to life in the feature film of Derek Goldman’s Remember This, conveyed in the unique form of a filmed stage piece in a tour-de-force solo performance. Recorded for PBS’ “Great Performances,” the film is a study in elegant and eloquent minimalism.” Michael Reichenstag, Los Angeles Times
“A brilliant and timely portrayal of an extraordinary man.” Christiane Amanpour, CNN
Revueltas: Redes / Copland: The City. 2 Classic Political Film Scores (Naxos, 2022)
Angel Gil-Ordòñez with the PostClassical Ensemble
“The vital and immensely colorful, very narrative music [of Redes] is superbly played under the direction of Angel Gil-Ordonez… Copland’s score is highly atmospheric and supports the expressiveness of the images with no less expressive, quasi-argumentative music. The result is a wonderful, highly original score with a lasting effect, which can be heard on this CD in a very haunting interpretation. Listened to without the movie pictures, it becomes, like the music of Revueltas, a magnificent tone poem.” Remy Franck, Pizzicato
Together (Decca Classics, 2022)
“Carlos Simon brings his entire self to his compositions… weaving into the music the many threads that make up the fabric of his life: his blackness, his upbringing, all of it.” Ed Yim, WQXR
“a 10-track project that came about from the desire to simply make music with friends and colleagues, after the long period of separation during the pandemic.” John Pitman, All Classical Radio
Acorn (Sleepy Cat Records, 2021)
Jay Hammond as Trippers & Askers
“… a brilliant example of how and why Americana is such a potent musical ground for combining different musical elements into something great to listen to.” Americana UK
“The conceptual framework informs but doesn’t overwhelm an album of delicately played modern Americana… Hammond’s baritone vocals… ring with gravitas, and the playing is slinky and skilled” Neil Spencer, The Guardian
“… a layered masterpiece of spiritual, jazzy indie folk music that speaks of hope to this pandemic-battered and climate change scorched world.” A Green Man Review
“… invokes Octavia E. Butler’s prophetic vision with a veritable who’s who of the Durham scene… Hammond’s melodies are at once well-worn and unusual, and the arrangements burst with color.” Dan Ruccia, Indy Week
Wonderful Splendor, The Beckerath Organ, St. Paul Cathedral, Pittsburgh (Raven, 2021)
On the unaltered and restored 1962 Rudolf von Beckerath organ of 97 ranks and four manuals at St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Russell Weismann plays a wide range of repertoire in demonstration of the versatile instrument.
“Making a fine solo debut on disc, Russell Weismann plays with consummate relish.” Michael Quinn, Choir & Organ Magazine
Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975): Whitman, Souvenirs de voyage, Psycho: A Narrative for String Orchestra (Naxos, 2020)
Angel Gil-Ordòñez with the PostClassical Ensemble
“Like many successful Hollywood composers, Bernard Herrmann pursued musical endeavors beyond (in his time) the celluloid. Studies at Juilliard were followed by conducting posts with the New Chamber Orchestra of New York and the CBS Symphony Orchestra, with which he championed music by major figures of the day, including Ives, even as he wrote music for radio programs and composed concert works and, eventually, movie scores. Herrmann’s versatility in three genres – radio, chamber music and film – is captured on this absorbing recording featuring the PostClassical Ensemble, an experimental orchestral laboratory in residence at the Washington National Cathedral.” Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone
Instrumental Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
“The title of Anthony DelDonna’s book conveys the promise of a subject matter whose time has surely come.” W. Dean Sutcliffe, Journal of the American Musicological Society
“… the first monograph specifically devoted to instrumental music in late eighteenth-century Naples. The study presents a wide-ranging view of the Neapolitan music tradition and situates the instrumental repertory within broader cultural and political contexts.” Guido Olivieri, Music & Letters
Punk the Capital: Building a Sound Movement (PTC International, Sphairos Productions, 2019)
Offering a “rare, unseen treasure hunt feeling” with live footage that is “visceral, fabulously sepia, and a fresh (and mildly grainy) glimpse at live shows from forty years ago that you’re definitely not going to find on YouTube.” Lisa Battiston, Boston Hustle
“Against all odds, the kids of Washington, D.C., built an empire that endures to this day, as documented by Paul Bishow and James June Schneider’s fascinating documentary” Chuck Foster, Film Threat
Falla: El amor brujo (1915 original version), El retablo de Maese Pedro (Naxos, 2019)
Angel Gil-Ordòñez with the Perspectives Ensemble
“Angel Gil-Ordóñez semble avoir volé la baguette d’Eduard Toldrà, les tempos se précipitent, les rythmes s’aiguisent, les timbres fusent, faisant l’œuvre ce qu’elle doit être, un tourbillon, et menant dans un savant accelerando les épisodes tendres ou héroïques jusqu’au carnage et à la proclamation amoureuse du chevalier errant. (Angel Gil-Ordóñez seems to have stolen Eduard Toldrà’s baton, the tempos rush, the rhythms sharpen, the timbres fuse, making the work what it should be, a whirlwind, and leading in a skillful accelerando the tender or heroic episodes up to the carnage and the loving proclamation of the knight errant.)” Jean-Charles Hoffelé, Avant Scène Opéra
Lesbian & Queer Plays from the Jane Chambers Prize (NoPassport Press, 2019)
Maya E. Roth and Jennifer-Scott Mobley, eds.
This volume gathers five plays from the history of the Jane Chambers Prize, an annual award that recognizes plays and scripts for performances written by a woman that present a feminist perspective and significant roles for female and genderqueer performers.
American Music Documentary: Five Case Studies of Ciné-Ethnomusicology (Wesleyan University Press, 2018)
“Harbert’s approach allows for a rethinking of ethnomusicology, framing it not just as a field of study but as a vibrant, interdisciplinary practice.” Jennie Gubner, Ethnomusicology
“American Music Documentary is an inspirational motivation for ‘ciné-ethnomusicology’ that views audiovisual media not just as tools for recording but as creative channels for critically understanding both music and film.” Nick Poulakis, Journal of Folklore Research Reviews
“… heralds the opening of a new period in the discipline, marked by significant contributions to both ethnomusicology and film studies.” Michael B. MacDonald, MUSICultures
Paliashvili: Georgian Sacred Chants On the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Musica Russica, 2014)
Frederick A. Binkholder and the Capitol Hill Chorale
“… the first recording made to use Paliashvili’s original Georgian language… the 100-voice Capitol Hill Chorale meets both the linguistic and musical challenge. The other-worldly richness, language, and majesty of Orthodox liturgical singing melt together with heavenly results.” The Banner
Pánico: La banda que buscó el sonido debajo (Largometraje documental, 2011)
In February 2010, the legendary Chilean band Panico traveled through the desert of northern Chile with the challenge of recording a new album in the Atacama Desert. After two decades of punk and post-punk rock, these offspring of political exiles are themselves rocked by not only the strange sounds and voices of northern Chile but also by a major earthquake.
Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians (Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2013)
“Although Follow Me Down is lauded as a concert film… the overall quality of filmmaking and production is excellent, and Harbert should be commended for his systematic investigation and work in presenting the lives of an often-overlooked portion of the American musical landscape, not to mention its population.” Everette Scott Smith, Journal of the Society for American Music
“Well conceived and comprehensive in its approach.” Francisco Lara, Ethnomusicology
Opera, Theatrical Culture and Society in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples (Routledge/Ashgate, 2012)
“… succeeds in demonstrating how the changing operatic style reflected the wider intellectual currents of the time, frequently placing Naples at the forefront of enlightened thought.” Allan Badley, Fontes Artis Musicae
“… offers a rich picture of late eighteenth-century Neapolitan culture… demonstrates the importance of Neapolitan traditions which were idiosyncratic to their context, yet also responsive to conventions and innovations posited elsewhere on the European continent.” Zoey M. Cochran, Music & Letters
“Anthony R. DelDonna channels his decade-long research on eighteenth-century Naples into a broad and challenging survey.” Marilena Laterza, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Afromexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (University of Texas Press, 2010)
“González skillfully attends to the mobile history of ethnic encounter and exchange among Africans, indigenous groups, and the Spanish that has informed the hybridity of expressive forms and subjectivities over time… González is continuing to open up the field.” Alex E. Chávez, Latin American Music Review
“The rich visual display complements the book’s high level of scholarly achievement.” Laura Hobson Herlihy, American Studies
“Gonzalez examines the relationship between colonization, conquest, and performance as she considers the larger construct of Mexican performances… She also reflects on her personal journey and position as an Afro-Latina, alongside her professional interests, which creates an interesting view of the experience of the Afro-Mexican dance community.” Helane Adams Androne, Journal of African American Studies
Kafka’s Metamorphosis (Synetic Theater, 2010)
“Goldman, who directed Theater J’s excellent production of In Darfur, more or less simultaneously with his production here, has written an extraordinary adaptation, After you watch Goldman’s startling adaptation of the Franz Kafka short story Metamorphosis, you may realize that you are turning into a cockroach. in metamorphosing from Metamorphosis to Kafka’s own agonized self-examination and back again, Goldman makes us get it.” Tim Treanor, DC TheatreScene
Trojan Barbie (2009, Samuel French, 2015)
2007 Jane Chambers Award
Playwrights First “Plays for the 21st Century” Award
2009 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Playwriting Fellowship
“A modernized take on Euripides’ Trojan Women.” Tamara Zayachkowski, The Strand
“Evans best described the show herself as a ‘postmodern collision of the times Trojan Barbie dramatizes.’ The show is a brilliant commentary on what we think is most important in life juxtaposed with the tragedy of the women of Euripides.” Nicole Cusick, DC Theater Arts
“… ambitious, thought-provoking.” Zach Brubert & Eleanor Costello, Varsity
“Christine Evans has masterfully weaved a modern story into a classic Greek tapestry, to highlight through Lotte how horrifying the oppression and abuse is that the women of Troy suffer.” Michelle Sutton, New Theatre Review
International Dramaturgy: Translation & Transformations in the Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker (Peter Lang, 2008)
Maya E. Roth and Sara Freeman, eds.
“Given the extent of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s oeuvre, Maya E. Roth and Sara Freeman’s International Dramaturgy, the first full-length volume on the playwright, is overdue and very welcome… The editors’ manifest commitment to interdisciplinarity and cultural diversity deserves much praise.” Sophie Bush, Modern Drama
Composing for the Screen in Germany and the USSR: Cultural Politics and Propaganda (Indiana University Press, 2007)
Robynn J. Stilwell and Phil Powrie, eds.
“The book’s exploration of how cultural and political dynamics shape artistic creation is both rigorous and enlightening… This collection provides a compelling look at how cultural politics and propaganda influenced film music composition in Germany and the USSR, offering readers a deep dive into a rich historical period filled with political charge and artistic experimentation.” Mark D. Kuss, Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television
Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film (Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006)
Phil Powrie & Robynn J. Stilwell, eds.
“… a welcome addition as it illuminates a crucial aspect of film music that significantly affects audience perception and the film’s emotional impact… The collection’s interdisciplinary approach is a commendable effort in advancing the field” Giorgio Biancorosso, Current Musicology
“… groundbreaking for its comprehensive treatment of both classical and popular music in cinema… offers an illuminating exploration of pre-existing music in film.” Marcia J. Citron, Music & Letters
“… a notable contribution to cinema studies… an enlightening examination of how familiar music shapes film viewers’ interpretations and emotional responses, making it an essential resource for understanding the complex interplay between music and film narrative.” Frank Brady, Popular Music and Society
Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil (Duke University Press, 2004)
Bryan McCann, affiliate faculty
“[Offers] sustained attention to the connections between cultural expression, the audience’s desires, the government’s demands, and the inescapable imperatives of the economy.” Frederick Moehn, Latin American Music Review
“McCann documents the modern origins of this vast and varied realm of cultural expression, making a strong case for understanding its cultural strategies, historical achievements, and present status in relation to a crucial period of national history.” Christopher Dunn, Luso-Brazilian Review
“An entertaining and convincing work that provides new insights on an area of study that has become increasingly familiar in recent years.” Sean Stroud, Journal of Latin American Studies
Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond (Intellect Books, 2000)
Bill Marshall and Robynn J. Stilwell, eds.
“… successfully broadens the scope of film musical studies beyond the American film musical. It offers fresh perspectives on musicals from different cultural contexts like Spain, Germany, and Greece, highlighting the diverse ways in which film musicals engage with national identity and cultural politics.” Stephen Banfield, New Theatre Quarterly