About the Scholar-Artist
Overview
Welcome to my digital academic portfolio. This is a curated space where my work as a performance scholar-artist, professor, and researcher comes together.
As Assistant Professor and Program Director of Performance Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana, my work is grounded in Black feminist thought, digital performance, and creative inquiry. I study how everyday Black life becomes performance on stages, in archives, online, and in the rituals of daily living.
Experiencing this portfolio digitally is itself a form of performance. The ways I have curated images, sound, moving media, links, structure, and supporting documents are intentional acts of composition that reflect how I think about performance, scholarship, and Black life.
Performance shapes almost everything around us.
You can also visit my Xavier faculty profile for a quick overview.
I recorded this footage using a drone at Boat Launch Point in Metairie, Louisiana. Song credit is Pastor Shirley Caesar, "This Joy I Have." I combine the two forms of media to emphasize how we can allow the munedaness of life to speak for itself.
"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
-Maya Angelou
Education
As a native of Dallas, Texas, Louisiana became my second home almost nine years ago. I earned my PhD in Communication Studies from Louisiana State University, where I specialized in both the Performance Studies and Rhetoric concentrations within the department. I also completed minors in Women’s Studies and African and African American Studies.
Before attending LSU, I completed both my B.A. and M.A. in Communication Studies at the University of North Texas, where I also focused on performance and rhetoric.
Mandeville, Louisiana.