Dear students, faculty, alumni and friends,
Looking back at the past year, we are grateful to have shared time with world-renowned artists, local community arts organizations, students, and faculty.
As the arts face new challenges, we are reminded of the critical work of our mission: to create intellectual and physical space for the study of performance. Advocating for performance as a mode of research and as a means of public engagement, centering on underrepresented, non-Western, and diasporic voices, bodies, and acts.
The Center for World Performance is committed to supporting these important narratives, methods, and traditions. By providing a platform, we aim to uplift and celebrate the breadth of performance studies practices.
Right now, faculty and graduate student research is taking place across the globe, in places like China, India, New Zealand, Germany, New York, South Carolina, Korea, Turkey, and Detroit. Their research will include international collaborations, immersive residencies, and archival studies, exploring themes ranging from cultural identity and representation in theater to global performance practices and protest art.
We want to express our gratitude for the support from the School of Music, Theatre & Dance where we have found our new administrative home. Under STMD, we look forward to growing our programs and our impact across the campus. We hope you have found our new website and our Instagram too.
We invite you to reflect on the work we've accomplished over the past year and encourage you to connect with us as we continue to grow our community of artist-scholars.
Michael Gould, Director
CWPS Mission
The Center for World Performance Studies seeks to create intellectual and physical space for the study of performance. Our aim is to advocate for performance as a mode of research and as a means of public engagement, centering on underrepresented, non-Western, and diasporic voices, bodies, and acts. We connect—both locally and globally—students, faculty, artists, thinkers, and scholars in order to educate each other about Performance Studies and to promote interdisciplinary and intersectional insights and research methodologies.
Alice Coltrane Residency
Featuring Michelle Coltrane and the Brandee Younger Trio
In fall 2024, CWPS hosted a three-day artist residency honoring the work and legacy of harpist Alice Coltrane. Guests included Michelle Coltrane (daughter of Alice Coltrane, jazz vocalist, and composer) and Brandee Younger (award winning jazz harpist, teacher, and premiere interpreter of Alice Coltrane’s music).
Residency activities included class visits across the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, a visit to Cass Tech High School’s harp program in Detroit (where Alice Coltrane was born), and several public-facing events including a lecture and performance with the Brandee Younger Trio.
All events were aimed at sharing Alice Coltrane’s legacy as a major jazz innovator, spiritual leader, and humanitarian.
Presented by the Center for World Performance Studies with support from the U-M Arts Initiative, Department of Jazz & Contemporary Improvisation, and the Program in Creativity & Consciousness Studies.
Dear Diary, Here's a Joke For You
Telling Your Story Through Stand-Up Comedy
In September 2024, a night of stand-up comedy took over the Keene Theater! Hosted by Vivian Burgett and Julianna Loera-Wiggins and featuring seven diverse comedians whose material encapsulated real moments of the human experience.
Topics ranged from uncomfortable encounters, daily challenges, and the experience of loss. The performance highlighted how stand-up comedy is made up of creative risks and promotes social justice within performance.
Presented by the Center for World Performance Studies and U-M Arts Initiative.
Mark Stone Residency
In February 2025, Professor Mark Allen Stone (Oakland University) joined on campus for a three-day residency focused on sharing his ongoing research into Bernard Soglinsog Woma’s compositions for the Dagara gyil, a xylophone from northern Ghana.
Woma was a distinguished Gyil Gɔba (master gyil artist) and a world-renowned African music performer/teacher. As a member of the Bernard Woma Ensemble, Stone performed with Woma at festivals in Ghana, conferences and concert venues throughout the US, and premiered his gyil concerti with major orchestras in the US, Germany, and South Africa.
Throughout the visit, Stone visited classes within the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and the Residential College and presented the lecture/performance, "The Music of Bernard Soglinsog Woma: A Practice-Led Study of Composition-in-Performance".
Pictured left: Mark Stone playing the Embaire in Stephen Rush's Experimental Music Theory class.
Ari Hoenig Trio
In March 2025, the Center for World Performance Studies hosted jazz drummer, composer and educator, Ari Hoenig, known for his unusual and intense approach to drumming emphasizing complex rhythms in direct harmony with other group members.
Hoenig visited classes within the university, Community High School Jazz Program in Ann Arbor (pictured right), and was joined by his Trio (pianist Gadi Lehavi and bassist Ben Tiberio) for a performance at the Keene Theater.
West African Drum & Dance with T. Ayo Alston
The Center for World Performance Studies welcomed back T. Ayo Alston, founder and director of the Chicago-based Ayodele Drum and Dance, for a semester-long course in West African Drum & Dance.
T. Ayo Alston teaches and practices a signature theatrical style of West African drum and dance culture that captures the strength and power of women and community. Through Ayodele, she has performed, educated, fostered interpersonal healing, and created artistic work from a foundation of traditional African cultures fused with contemporary dance styles.
CWPS Co-Sponsored Student, Faculty and Departmental Events
CWPS co-sponsors a wide variety of student and faculty projects across the university—all of which serve to strengthen intellectual and cultural life on campus and beyond. In 2024-2025, CWPS was the proud sponsor of several projects, including performances organized by student cultural organizations, artist residencies, film projects and installations by faculty.
Pictured: Filipino American Student Association's dance group FASA Pamana performing Pigsayu of the Talaandig: A Filipino Storytelling and Dance Performance, receiving 1st Place at Battle of the Bamboo 2025.
CWPS co-sponsored student organization events such as Malaysian Cultural Night 2025 (pictured right)
CWPS 2024-25 co-sponsorship events included:
- Azad Storytelling: Interactive Karagoz Puppetry Experience with Sona Tatoyan
- Rogério Pinto's Art Exhibition "Colorism"
- Giuliana Musso's visit: Performance and Talk
- Kunqu Opera Demonstration and Performance
- Performance by Djalma Thürler and Duda Woyda
- American Romanian Festival
- Lecture-recital at the University of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum
- Dia de los Muertos
- Queer Tango Workshop with Luna Beller-Tadiar
- David Wang: Fusion of Percussion Ensemble and Jazz
- Migrant Domestic Laborers and Care Workers in Spain: the Translation of Performing Arts-Based Activism into Film
- Sunhong Kim / Sinaboro - Musicology Conference
- Filipino American Student Association (FASA) / Philippine Culture Night (PCN)
- Global Scholars Program / Annual Culture Show
- African Student Association / Annual Culture Show
- Filipino American Student Association (FASA) / Battle of the Bamboo 2025
- Malaysian Cultural Night (MCN) 2025
- GenAPA Culture Show
- Latin@ Culture Show 2025
- Multicultural Greek Exhibition (MGX)
- Melodies of Care / Traditions in Tune
- Indonesian Culture Night
- Jordanian Student Association (JSA) Culture Night
CWPS Graduate Fellows
Graduate Fellows presented capstone papers, performances, and videos sharing their research and study. Pictured right is Paige Madden (DMA in Percussion) capstone presentation.
Congratulations to the following graduate students who completed the Certificate in World Performance Studies:
- Olivia Cirisan | MM in Percussion Performance
- Kiana (KC) Cook | MFA Dance
- Lola Gallo | PhD in Romance languages and Literatures
- Marthe Djilo Kamga | PhD in Romance languages and Literatures
- Paige Madden | DMA in Percussion
- Rachel Richards | MM in Percussion Performance
- Timothy Tsang | MFA Dance
- David Wang | MM in Percussion Performance
CWPS 2025 Graduate Fellows
- Scott Crandall | MFA in Dance
- Vignesh Sankaran Ganesan | MM in Improvisation
- Ginny Jiang | MFA in Dance
- Faye Lu | MM in Performance, Winds & Percussion
- Holly Nelson | PhD in English Language and Literature
- Brittany Pendergraft | PhD in Classical Studies
- Lauren Blair Smith | MFA in Dance
- Eric Whitmer | PhD in Musicology with Historical Emphasis
Graduate Fellows are pursuing research this summer throughout China, Taiwan, New Zealand, India, and more!
2025 Faculty Fellows
Each year, grant awards are available to individual faculty members to pursue research projects, both domestic and international. We encourage inventive ideas, especially those that involve thematic support for Performance Studies, including ethnography and performance as research. This year, Faculty Fellows grants were awarded to the following faculty projects:
- Raja Benz, Lecturer in Musical Theatre, Theatre & Drama | Performing Culture, Performing Consent
- Shavonne Coleman, Assistant Professor of Theatre & Drama | Occupying the Archives: Restoring the Histories of the Global Majority in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA)
- antonio c. cuyler, Professor of Music | We Were Fridays Residency at The Penn Center
- Jungah Han, Assistant Professor of Theatre & Drama | National Dance Company of Korea & National Changgeuk Company of Korea's Productions and Traditional Music
- Jake Hooker, Program Head: Residential College Drama | Will It Rise From The Ashes? Detroit’s Theatre Scenes, 1913-Present
- Christianne Myers, Claribel Baird Halstead Collegiate Professor of Theatre & Drama | Papermoon Residency
- Zeynep Özcan, Assistant Professor of Music, Performing Arts Technology | Customs and Borders
- Swapnil Rai, Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media | Elective Affinities: Women's Agency and Televisual Flows between Modi's India and Erdogan's Türkiye
- Greta Uehling, Teaching Professor, Program in International and Comparative Studies | The Performance of Protest in Tbilisi, Georgia: Public Art and Pyrotechnics
- Robin Wilson, Professor of Dance | New Waves! 2025 Conference
Youth Arts Alliance & CWPS
CWPS partnership with Ypsilanti-based Youth Arts Alliance began in 2022 with community programs held at Sycamore Meadows. CWPS graduate fellows have led drumming classes weekly throughout the summer. CWPS continued this partnership in summer 2024 with CWPS graduate fellow Fitz Neeley (MM in Composition) and will again partner during summer 2025.