Current Students

Michelle R. Baron: Brandeis University, B.A. English and Theater; M.A. Performance Studies, UC Berkeley: gender and queer theory, 19th and 20th century American cultural studies, Latina/o and Chicana/o studies, Visual and material cultural studies, theories of performance and affect, transnational feminist theories and methodologies.
Dissertation working title: “Queering US Public Mourning Practice: Funerals, Performance, and the Production of Normativity”
mbaron@berkeley.edu

Nilgun Bayraktar: Sabanci University, Turkey, B.A. Cultural Studies; Designated Emphasis in Film Studies; Women, Gender and Sexuality at UC Berkeley: Politics of migration and border-crossing in Europe, mobility studies, global capitalism and geographies of labour, feminist theory and performance, film and video art, site-specific art, avant-garde and neo-avant-garde aesthetics.
Dissertation working title: “Art against the Current: Geo-politics of Mobility and Migration in Post-Socialist Europe”
nilgun@berkeley.edu

Sima Belmar: B.A. Russian and History, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison; M.A. Russian Literature, Stanford University; M.F.A. Dance, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Contemporary dance practice and performance; the intersection of alternative body modalities and theories of embodiment; phenomenology of gesture; anthropology of proprioception/kinesthesia.
simabelmar@berkeley.edu

Nina Billone: B.S. Performance Studies, Gender Studies, Northwestern University: activism and performance, community-based performance, feminist and queer theory, race theory, critical prison and welfare studies studies, performance ethnography, and literary adaptation.
Dissertation working title: “In the System: Art, Prison, and the Performance of Social Welfare”
nbillone@gmail.com

Marc Boucai: B.A. Theatre and English, Swarthmore College; graduate studies with L’Ecole Internationale de Jacque le Coq: performer, movement specialist, director, and critic. His research interests include American Studies, Arab American diasporas and subjectivities in experimental performance and popular culture, transnational feminist and queer theory, theories of genre (musicals, sitcoms, melodrama, and comedy), and theories of globalization and affect.
mboucai1@berkeley.edu

Shane Boyle: Duke University, B.A. English. Research interests include: European activist art and performance, critical theory, the twentieth century European avant-garde, twentieth century German Theater, Postdramatic Theatre, New German Cinema, “terrorism,” critical cosmopolitanism, and the alternative globalization movement(s).
mshaneboyle@gmail.com

Carrie Gaiser Casey: B.A. Smith College, Religious Studies: twentieth century dance historiography; genealogies of dance practice; women, feminism, and ballet; theories of cultural transmission; Japanese performance.
Dissertation working title: “Bodies of Tradition, Choreographies of Lineage: Genealogy and Gender in American Ballet”
cgaiser@gmail.com

Joy Crosby: B.A. Comparative History of Ideas, University of Washington: early modern French theater, church history, liturgical practices, and the interplay between religion, ritual, politics, and performance.
Dissertation working title: “Theological Space and Making Belief: King, Church and Theater in Early Modern France.”
joycrosby@berkeley.edu

Catherine (Kate) Ming T’ien Duffly: B.A. History, Macalester; M.A. Performance Studies, NYU; current research interests include: race and gender theory; socially engaged performance; community-based performance; the politics and performance of food. Kate is also a director and worked on theatrical projects with Bread and Puppet and Cornerstone Theater and has directed at the Flea Theater in New York, at NYU and at UC Berkeley.
Dissertation working title: “The Act of Eating: Socially Engaged Performance and the Politics of Food”
kate_duffly@berkeley.edu

Ashley Ferro-Murray: B.A. Critical Performance Theory in the College Scholar Program and Dance, Cornell University: A choreographer and dancer, Ashley’s pursuits include practical and theoretical explorations of motion capture programming, interactive wearable sensors and digital animation software. She considers experiences with these technologies in the context of dance history and studies. More broadly, Ashley considers digitality and movement from a philosophical and theoretical perspective. Designated emphasis in New Media.
aferromurray@berkeley.edu

Emine Fisek: B.A., Theater and English Literature, Swarthmore College: Twentieth century French and Francophone performance; theories of embodiment, subjectivity and postcoloniality; relationship between immigration, humanitarian aid and theater practice.
Dissertation working title: “Acting French: Immigration, Performance and the Politics of Witnessing in France”
emine@berkeley.edu

Kate Kokontis: Yale University, B.A.; Studio Art Centers Int’l, Post-Bacc: UC Berkeley, M.A.  Interests include visual cultural studies and performativity; critical race studies and intersectionality; theories of memory and historiography; ethnography and oral history; transnational American studies; museum studies.
Dissertation working title: “Performative Returns and the Rememory of History: performing multiculturalisms and transnational identifications in the American racial state”
kate.kokontis@gmail.com

Caitlin Marshall: B.A. Theater Arts, Brown University; graduate M.M. program in voice at Roosevelt University: Marshall is a trained vocalist, actor, playwright, and ethnomusicologist, whose current project explores contemporary traditions of Quranic memorization and recitation, both as a vocalist and as an ethnographer. She is interested in transnational Muslim identities, phenomenology, affect and memory, and critical race and gender theory. She has studied French and Arabic at the Sorbonne and at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.
simms.cm@gmail.com

Charlotte McIvor: Muhlenberg College, B.A. in Theatre and English: colonial and postcolonial Irish and Indian (with an emphasis on West Bengal) theatre and performance as understood in relation to the development of the modern theatre, comparative colonialisms, transnational flows, race politics and gendered contexts of production. Also, performance of the “New Europe,” immigration, and the Celtic Tiger. Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Dissertation working title: “Staging the ‘Global Irish’: Transnational Genealogies of Modern Irish Performance”
cmcivor@berkeley.edu

Khai Thu Nguyen: M.A. Humanities, B.A. Early Modern Studies, Stanford University: Post-colonial performance and globalization; Asian and Asian American performance in a global context; modern drama, intercultural performance; politics of culture, affect, and melodrama; theories of performance, gender, and race; fieldwork methods.
Dissertation working title: “Sensing Vietnam: Melodramas of Nation from Colonialism to Market Reform”
khaithu@gmail.com

Godfrey Plata: B.A. Theater and American Studies/Ethnic Studies, University of Richmond: Teach For America alum, director, writer, actor, and teacher; Research interests include social change efforts at large, especially around issues of race and ethnicity; the performance of diversity; public history and collective memory; place, tourism, heritage, and representation; popular culture; spectacle; the intersection of Filipino Studies and African American Studies; performance and education.
godfreyplata@gmail.com

Kelly Rafferty: B.A. English, Tulane University. Kelly’s current research interests include feminist visual art and performance; bioart; gender and disability studies; embodied interactivity; and reproductive/biotechnologies. She also directs plays, teaches performance technique classes, and designs performance pedagogy workshops at UC Berkeley.
rafferty.kelly@gmail.com

Ivan A. Ramos: B.A. Critical Gender Studies/Film Studies, UCSD. Ivan grew up on the Mexican side of the busiest border crossing in the world, where he developed, in his words, a “strange bicultural identity.” His research interests include racial performativity and representation in queer contexts, particularly online sex sites and pornography; queer affective practices; US immigration law and the social/legal performance of nation; choreographies, dance, and the relationship between performer/audience on youtube videos; film criticism, art cinema, and popular culture.
iramos@berkeley.edu

Heather Rastovac: B.A. University of Washington, Major: Near Eastern Languages and Civilization (with a focus on Persian language), Minors: Anthropology and Dance. Dancer, choreographer, artistic director. Her research interests include the history and position of dance in the Iranian cultural sphere, how censorship has shaped artistic aesthetics in Iran and the Iranian diaspora post-1979 Revolution, the role of Persian poetry in contemporary Iranian arts, multi-media performance, and issues of Orientalism and transnationalism in relation to performance.
heather.rastovac@berkeley.edu

Omar Ricks: B.A. History, Johnson C. Smith University; M.A. U.S. History, University of Illinois; M.F.A. Drama, University of California, Irvine: Interests linked to performance studies include race, gender, sexuality, subject formation, metanarrative, performance theory, political theory, psychoanalysis, political ontology, film studies, new media, policing, prison-industrial complex.
omarricks@berkeley.edu

Ariel Osterweis Scott: BA with Departmental Honors in Anthropology, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, Columbia University. Having danced professionally with Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden’s Complexions, Mia Michaels R.A.W., Heidi Latsky, Homer Avila, and Fred Ho, Scott has choreographed works based on doubling, pregnancy, translation, and the Drawing Poems of Robert Grenier. Her research lies at the intersection of race, sexuality, virtuosity, and temporality in contemporary choreography in the U.S. and Sub-Saharan (post)colonial Africa. Additional topics of inquiry include transnational collaboration, disability studies, theories of corporeality, dance training, and experimental ethnography. Scott’s writing appears in Women and Performance: a journal of feminist theory, e-misférica, Dancer Magazine, In Dance, and is forthcoming in Dance Research Journal. Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
Dissertation working title: “Racial Choreographies: Contemporary Africanist Aesthetics in the Dance of Desmond Richardson.”
aos@berkeley.edu

Chia-Yi (Jessie) Seetoo: B.A. Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University; M.A. Theatre, Northwestern University: Dancer and performer. Research interests include performances in transnational contexts, problems and prospects of translation, corporealities and “affect”, “Eastern body” aesthetics in Taiwan, and modern Chinese cultural performance. Other interests in practice include contemporary dance, film and new media, choreography, and intermedia choreography.
chiayijessiec2@gmail.com

Karin Shankar: B.A. International Studies and Spanish, Colby College; M.P.A., Cornell University. Karin is from Mumbai, India, and is a vocalist (Karnatak music) and actor. Her research interests include: global political performance traditions/theatres of resistance in South Asia and Latin America, performance and identity, anthropology of power.
kshankar@berkeley.edu

April Sizemore-Barber: B.A. English, Oberlin College: comes with a range of experiences as a performer, director, producer, and critic in the field of theater and social change, with a focus on queer performance. Her primary research interest, however, is in South African theater, museums and visual art as they relate to changing national identities, traumas, and conceptions of justice.
a01sizem@yahoo.com

Joanne Taylor: B.A. English and Music, UC Berkeley: The cinema and performance; American popular cinema; phenomenological responses to film; 20th century acting and directing theories; Shakespeare in the 20th and 21st centuries; editing theory; translation theory and performance; Brecht; Epic and Dialectical theaters.
Dissertation working title: “Articulating Cinematic Performance: Time, Space, and Body”
joanne@berkeley.edu

Scott Wallin: B.A., Dramatic Arts and Cultural Anthropology, UC Santa Barbara; M.S.W. Social Welfare, UC Berkeley; M.A. Performance Studies, New York University: ‘madness’ and performance; disability studies; theories and practice of directing and acting for the stage.
swallin@berkeley.edu

Brandon Woolf: B.A. Philosophy and English, Columbia University: Modern and Contemporary European Theatre & Performance, Brecht, Theatre for Social Change, Off(-Off)-Broadway Directing/Producing, Aesthetic Theory, Institutional Critique, and Cultural Policy. Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory.
bwoolf@berkeley.edu

Hentyle Yapp: B.A., Brown University, French Literature & Premedical Studies; J.D., UCLA School of Law, Critical Race Theory & Public Interest Law. Hentyle danced professionally with modern/contemporary companies in Taipei, Taiwan and New York. Yapp’s interests include avant-gardism, colorblindness and contemporary dance; critical race and queer theories; the law, body and performance; disability rights; and citizenship, sovereignty and war.
yapp@berkeley.edu