Faculty Accomplishments

This past summer, professors from the Department of Performing Arts shared their expertise worldwide. 

Professor Anthony R. DelDonna delivered a keynote at the Università della Basilicata, in Italy. Professor DelDonna focused on the string virtuosi of the Neapolitan Cappella Reale, or Royal Chapel, in the period 1750-1800. The Cappella had been composed of the finest vocalists and instrumentalists in the Kingdom of Naples and were in the direct employment of the Spanish Bourbon monarchs at court. His keynote not only reconstructed the history of the Cappella in the aforementioned period, but also discussed lost music that he has recovered by these violinists—music that had gone unperformed since the eighteenth century.

Professor Anita Gonzalez delivered her keynote, “Bringing Visibility to Afro-Latin Dance,” for a conference called “Intersection: Diasporic Dialogues.” Professor Gonzalez spoke about two performance projects in Washington D.C. about the Afro-Diasporic experience: Kumanana with the Gala Hispanic Theater and Perspectivas Negras with the Racial Justice Institute’s Woodshed Collective.

Professor Benjamin J. Harbert spoke at the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD) Study Group on Audiovisual Ethnomusicology in Shanghai, China. In his talk, “The City as Sound,” he revisited the tradition of the city symphony film and argued for its revival as a critical form for exploring the intersections of body, technology, and urban life. The invitation to speak reflects Professor Harbert’s ongoing work in audiovisual ethnomusicology. The ICTMD is a UNESCO-affiliated organization, founded in 1947, that for nearly eight decades has brought together scholars from around the world to advance the study of music and dance across cultures.

Professor Van Tran Nguyen was a panelist at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education’s roundtable, “Beyond Binary: Reframing “The Real” in Contemporary Theatre and Performance.” This keynote roundtable invited leading scholar-artists to examine how contemporary theatre and performance navigate, challenge, and reconstruct notions of “the real” in an era where traditional boundaries between virtual and actual experience increasingly blur. Drawing on their diverse expertise in performance theory, digital humanities, cultural studies, and theatre making, panelists explored how contemporary theatre practices might help us understand—and shape—emerging paradigms of “the real” in both virtual and physical spaces. Moderated by Lindsay Brandon Hunter and Trevor Boffone, the panel featured Sarah Bay-Cheng, Brian Eugenio Herrera, Petra Kuppers, Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, Van Tran Nguyen, Diana Taylor, Marianne Weems, and Harvey Young.