Michelle Kisliuk

Passionate professor and researcher who inspires undergraduate and graduate students, with a track record in departmental leadership and a worldwide reputation for groundbreaking work in ethnomusicology and performance studies. Committed to advancing the department's goals, enhancing teaching methodologies, and modernizing courses. Strong background in research and publication. Dedicated to creating an engaging and innovative learning environment that fosters academic and personal excellence and prepares students for future success.

• Society for Ethnomusicology
• ICTMD
• Stone Prize committee, SEM, 2023
• Chair Stone Prize committee 2024
• Recruited to run for President of SEM 2023
• Nahumck Prize Committee 2010
• Council member, 1993-1995
• Council member, 2000-2007
• African Studies Association
• American Folklore Society
• Performance Studies International
• Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Editorial Board member (appointed Fall 2013)
• African Soundscapes series, Temple University Press, Editorial Board member
• Radical Musicology Journal, Editorial Board member (R. Middleton, Editor)

• University of Amsterdam, The Psychedelic Universe, 06/01/24
• Oaxaca, Mexico, intersections of tourism, north American mycophiles, and ecology, 09/01/24
• South Africa, Western Cape, concepts of indigeneity in current political landscape, Summer 2019
• Brazil and Cuba, African diasporic performance, Fall 2014
• Europe, Poland, Germany, France, Spain, Russia, Ireland, Tourist Productions, Fall 2014
• Central African Republic, 07/01/07, 08/01/01, 01/01/00, Winter 1997, Summer 1995, Summer 1994, Summer 1993, 12/01/92 - 01/31/93, Summer 1992, 10/01/87 - 06/30/89, Summer 1986
• Ghana, 06/01/07
• Republic of the Congo, Mali, Togo, Fall 1988, 06/01/82 - 09/30/82, 03/01/00
• United States upland South, Kentucky, Virginia, Southern Indiana, Summer 1983, Summer 1984, Summer 1985, Summer 2000

• Director, UVA African Music and Dance Ensemble, 1996 to present
• Co-director, Zokela Seko de Centrafrique, Charlottesville
• Founding Member, Agbekor Drum and Dance Society, Boston, MA, 1979-1982
• Leader, Agbekor Society Annex, New York City, 1983-1987
• Member, Antigravity String Band, Boston, MA, 1980-1982

• Honorable Mention Ellen Koskoff Prize for best edited volume (SEM), Fall 2024
• UVA Sesquicentennial Fellowship, Fall 2024
• IHGC Mellon Global South Performance Lab co-director, $200,000 fund, Fall 2019
• Named member of 4th Cohort, UVA College Fellows for 2019-2021, Fall 2018
• UVA Sesquicentennial Fellowship, Fall 2018
• Champion of Diversity Mentoring Award, Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, University of Virginia, Spring 2015
• Mellon Grad Teaching Seminar award (co-instructor), University of Virginia, Academic year 2013-14
• University of Virginia Summer Grant, Summer 2013
• University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship (writing leave), Fall 2012
• Mead Honored Faculty Award, University of Virginia (Alumni Association), Fall 2007
• University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship (one semester leave), Spring 2007
• Laura Boulton Senior Fellowship in Ethnomusicology, Fall 2001
• University of Virginia Sesquicentennial Fellowship (one-semester research leave), Spring 2000
• ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award (for book), December 1999
• Mellon Fellowship in Ethnomusicology, Washington Univ. St. Louis, 09/01/91 - 05/31/92
• Research grants, Swan Fund at Oxford University, Pitt-Rivers Museum, 06/01/86 - 05/31/96
• Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship, New York University, 1989-90
• National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Grant, 10/01/87 - 10/31/89
• Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grants #4871/#4920, 10/01/87 - 10/31/89

Since tenure:

• "the polyphonic underground: musical life and fungal life," (working title) multimedia ethnographic exploration. In preparation, to be completed by August 2025.
• Intimate Entanglements in the Ethnography of Performance: race, gender, vulnerability, co-editor with Sidra Lawrence, and contributor with major essay "Ethnography and its Double(s): Theorizing the Personal with Jews in Ghana," Boydell & Brewer, July 2023 (paperback April 2025), pp. 194-241. 2024 Winner Honorable Mention Ellen Koskoff Prize (Society for Ethnomusicology).
• "BaAka Singing in a State of Emergency: Storytelling and Listening as Medium and Message," book chapter in Cultural Sustainabilities: Music, Media, Language, Advocacy, Timothy J. Cooley, University of Illinois Press, April 2019, pp. 220-228. Republished in 2020 as multimedia article in Herri online journal (South Africa), Issue #3 https://herri.org.za/3/michelle-kisliuk/
• Review Essay of Necessary Noise by Cherie Rivers Ndaliko and Kwaito’s Promise by Gavin Steingo, in Ethnomusicology, 63, 2, Spring/Summer 2019.
• "Writing the Magnified Musicking Moment," book chapter in Deborah Kapchan ed., Theorizing Sound Writing, Wesleyan University Press, 2017, pp. 86-11.
• Review of: “Congo: Polyphonies pygmées du nord-Congo / Congo: Pygmy Polyphonies from North Congo_ (AIMP/VDE- Gallo) recordings and annotations by Nathalie Fernando.” Journal of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) Vol. 44. 2012. pp 205-6.
• "The Intersection Of Evangelism, Aids, And Mami Wata In Popular Music In Centrafrique," Henry Drewal ed., Sacred Waters: The Many Faces of Mami Wata and other Water Spirits in Africa, Indiana University Press, 2010, pp. 413-422.
• "Central African Republic," with Justin Serge Mongosso, encyclopedia entry, Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, 2010.
• "(Un)Doing Fieldwork: Sharing Songs, Sharing Lives," book chapter, second edition of Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, Oxford University Press, 2008 (first edition 1996), 183-205
• “Morphing Object, Process, and Person During Two Decades of Research with Musical Life in Centrafrique,” in Approaches to African MusicE. Camara de Landa and S. Martinez Garcia, eds. Online journal TRANS (English/Spanish). Universidad de Valladolid. Fall 2006. Pp. 169-176.
• “Siren Serenades: music for Mami Wata and Other Water Spirits in Africa.” With Henry Drewal and Charles Gore in Austern, L. P. and Naroditskaya, I., (eds.), Music of the Sirens. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 2006.
• “Central African Republic.” In The Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume 2: Locations. John Shepherd, David Horn, Dave Laing, Paul Oliver, and Peter Wicke, eds. London: Continuum. 2006.

Pre-tenure (some have been revised and reissued post-tenure):

• Seize the Dance!’: BaAka Musical Life and the Ethnography of Performance. (Book/monograph) Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998. Winner, ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award, 1999. Paperback edition, with new preface, January 2002. Print-on-demand edition with online audio and video, 2006.
• “What’s the ‘it’ That we Learn to Perform? Teaching BaAka Music and Dance” with Kelly Gross. In Ted Solis, ed., Performing Ethnomusicology: World Music Ensembles. University of California Press, 2004. Pp. 230-249.
• “Representing A Real Man: Music, Identity, and Upheaval in Centrafrique” with Justin Serge Mongosso, in Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures. 2004. pp. 33-46
• “The Poetics and Politics of Practice: Experience, Embodiment, and the Engagement of Scholarship” in Teaching Performance Studies: Theories, Practices, Pedagogies. N. Stuckey and C, Wimmer, eds. University of Southern Illinois Press. 2002
• "Comments: Uncoupling the 'Traditional' vs. 'Modern' Opposition" in Africa Today special issue, guest edited by Ruth M. Stone. June 2002. Pp. 86- 88.
• "Modern Music in Central Africa," “Pygmy Music,” and “Congo Music” in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Grove Press. 2001
• "Performance and Modernity among BaAka pygmies: A Closer Look at the Mystique of Egalitarian Foragers in the Rain Forest" in Music and Gender Beverley Diamond and Pirkko Moisala, eds. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2000. Pp. 25-50.
• "Musical Life in the Central African Republic." Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (Volume IAfrica). Ruth M. Stone, ed. New York:Garland Press. 1997. Reprinted in: Garland Handbook of African Music. New York: Garland press. 2000. Pp. 362-377.
• “A Special Kind of Courtesy: Action at a Bluegrass Festival Jam Session.” (1988) 2011 (republished in new edited collection) In Mark DeWitt ed, Roots Music, London:Ashgate. pp. 205-219.

Conference Presentations (selected): Workshop Presenter “The Polyphonic Underground”: ICTMD (International Council of Traditional Musical and Dance), Wellington, New Zealand, January 2025.

Discussant, 2024 Annual Meeting (virtual) of the Society for Ethnomusicology for panel, “From Jam Circle to Classroom”

Co-chair, convener, and presenter at roundtable, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Ottawa, CA. Creative Frictions in Sound and Silence. Sponsored by the Sound Studies Section. October 2023.

Presenter CHAGS 13 (International Conference on Hunter Gatherer Research) Dublin, Ireland.  “What is Living Well?” session. Paper title: “elanda: a BaAka singing game/dance and the socioesthetics of play.” July 2022.

Paper presentation for virtual international symposium, “Naming, Understanding, and Playing with Metaphor in Music,” April 29-30, 2022. UCLA Peer Lab. Hosted by Nina Eidsheim and Daniel Waldren. Paper, “Ethnography and its Doubles.”

Paper presentation: “Performing Antiquities and Modernities: ‘Pygmy’ Song and BaAka Lives Within a Globally Imganined Iconicity,” part of organized panel Navigating the Uneven Terrain of Cross-Cultural Collaboration Sponsored by the African Music Section, Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, October 2020 (remote conference).

Co-organizer and presenter Society for Ethnomusicology roundtable: “The Sounds of White Supremacy”  discussing work of graduate student Kyle Chattleton (with Martin Daughtry, Maureen Mahon, Suzanne Cusick, Joseph Maurer). November 2018, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Presenter CHAGS 12 (international Conference on Hunter and Gatherer Research) international scholars panel on hunter-gatherer musics. Penang, Malaysia. July 2018.

Presenter, roundtable on Theorizing Sound Writing (to celebrate publication of recent volume edited by Deborah Kapchan). Society for Ethnomusicology, Denver Colorado. November 2017.

Co-organizer (with Sidra Lawrence) and discussant for panel entitled "Practices of Desire: The Implications of Erotic Subjectivity in Ethnomusicological Field Research," at November 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Invited Speaker at Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Society for Ethnomusicology: Roundtable on Ethnomusicology in the Age of Digital Learning (with Anthony Seeger, Anne K. Rasmussen, and Carole Muller). Richmond, VA, March 2013.

Broadcast late December 2010 and ongoing online: Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep feature on Seize the Dance! and on teaching BaAka music. Banning Eyre, Producer, American Public Media. http://www.afropop.org/radio/radio_program/ID/803/

Paper: “Tourism and its Double: Participation as Potential Emancipation From Topes of Colonialism and Primitivism in West Africa.” With Ama Aduonum. As part of panel: Musical Performance and the Subversion of Tourism in Africa and the Diaspora. Los Angeles, CA. November 2010.

Roundtable presentation “Writing the Magnified Musicking Moment.” Dual roundtable (and upcoming volume) on Theorizing Sound Writing. Deborah Kapchan editor/organizer. Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Mexico City, November 2009.

Hip Deep Series for Afro-Pop Worldwide (National Public Radio): Jewish Communities of Sub-Saharan Africa: Interview and materials for supplementary feature. http://www.afropop.org/hipdeep/HipDeep.html#view=1&programId=696

Paper: “Ethnographic Research and Writing Strategies: Interactive Reflexivity and Beyond” for the panel, "(RE)flexin’ methodologies – strategies for dance research" with Tomie Hahn. For the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) Annual Conference, “Dance Studies and Global Feminisms” Fall 2008. Roanoke, Virginia.

Paper: “Wrestling with Some(Em)body,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Columbus Ohio, October 2007, as part of panel “Beholding Moves: Practicing Embodiment, Ethnography, and Research.”

Paper: “From Intangible to Material in Jewish Africa: A 5-year-Old Stand-in Gets Immersed in ‘Heritage’” paper presented at the Performance Studies International conference in New York City, December, 2007 as part of panel, “Intangible Heritage in Transit: Mediation, Mobility, Modernity”.

Paper: “’Pygmy Song’ and BaAka Lives: the impact of a globally imagined iconicity” for panel at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Miami Florida. October 2003.

Forum: “Race, Memory and Notions of Difference in the Practice of Ethnography” for “Negotiating the Fault Lines” panel member at Feminist Theory and Music 7, Bowling Green, Ohio. July 2003.

Paper: “Performing Piety: Popular Musics, Social Crisis, and Fundamentalist Ascendancy in the Central African Republic. Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Estes Park, CO. October 2002.

Discussant for panel, “Old Music and Dance for New Needs.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Toronto, Canada. October 2000. (became Africa Today issue).

Roundtable participant: What You Mean, `We'?: Method, Goal, and Identity in Academic `Ethno' Ensembles (inspired the Performing Ethnomusicologybook) Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Austin Texas. October 1999.

Paper (invited): “The Poetics and Politics of Practice: Experience, Embodiment, and the Engagement of Scholarship” on panel “What are we Doing: Field Research and Ethnomusicology” (involved participants in the Shadows in the Field publication). Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Toronto, Canada. October 1998.

Paper (invited): “'Pygmies' Within Globally Imagined Antiquities and Modernities: Reformulating an understanding of constructed authenticities." Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Bloomington, IN. October, 1998.

Paper: “Musical Performance, Field Experience, and the Poetic Frontier,” Cross-Cultural Poetics conference, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. October 1997.

Invited Presentations (selected):

'Fungal Polyphonies," Blue Ridge Mycological Association, 12/01/23, Class visit to Eastern TN State University, Appalachain Studies/Bluegrass, Fall 2023, Class visit to Introduction to Ethnomusicology, Illinois State University, Spring 2021, Fall 2023, BaAka Singing Workshop and Critical Discussion, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 08/01/19, BaAka Singing in a State of Emergency, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 11/19/18, Singing in a State of Emergency, Cultural Sustainabilities Conference, University of California, Santa Barbara, 05/01/18, Colloquium speaker, College of William and Mary, department of Music, 04/01/18, BaAka Singing in a State of Emergency, Iceland Institute of the Arts, 03/01/18, Pomona College guest speaker, Fall 2015, Colloquium and workshop in BaAka music, 5 Colleges residency, 04/01/15, Interacting Bodies, Spaces and Voices in BaAka Music and Dance from the Central African Rainforest, Colloquium distinguished speaker, Peabody School of Music, Baltimore, Maryland, 03/01/15, Interacting Bodies, Spaces and Voices in BaAka Music and Dance from the Central African Rainforest, Longyear Colloquium, University of Kentucky School of Music, Lexington Kentucky, 02/28/14 - 03/02/14, Colloquium Series and Workshop, School of Music University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 03/10/14 - 03/12/14, UVA African Studies Colloquium Presenter, 04/01/14, Writing the Magnified Musicking Moment, New York University Humanities Initiative Symposium, 04/01/12, Theorizing the Personal, New Zealand Musicological Society Annual Meeting, 11/01/11, Vanderbilt Conference on Politics, Criticism, and the Arts: Musical Performance as Political Practice, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 04/16/10 - 04/18/10, Featured Speaker at Harvard Symposium on Bluegrass Music, Harvard Center Program in Folklore and Mythology, Cambridge, MA, 02/06/10, Guest lecturer in Harvard music dept, on BaAka music and dance, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 03/10/10, Guest Lecture for NEH seminar ROOTS, African studies seminar for college teachers, 08/01/06 and 08/01/08, Guest lecturer, Harvard University, Music, Graduate Seminar in Music and Embodiment, 04/01/07, Invited Lecture, Valladolid, Spain, Spring 2006, Invited Lecture, Royal Holloway University of London, Fall 2005, Evening Lecture, Longwood University, 09/01/03, Musicology/ethnomusicology colloquium presentation, Ohio State University, 02/01/03, Distinguished speaker, Muhlenberg College forum on Performance Studies, 03/01/02, Keynote Speaker for conference theme, 'Musical Experience', British Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, 04/01/02, University of Texas, Austin: critical consultant, speaker, workshop organizer, People of the Forest Project, 11/01/01, BaAka Performance Workshop, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 11/01/01, Teach In and workshop for the 'People of the Forest Project', University of Vermont, 10/01/01, Pre-concert lecture for 'People of the Forest Project', Flynn Theater, Burlington Vermont, 10/01/01, Post-concert Q & A 'People of the Forest Project', New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 10/01/01, African Out Loud panelist, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, 07/01/01, The Polyphonic Underground, ICTMD (International Council of Traditional Musical and Dance), Wellington, New Zealand, 01/01/25, 2024 Annual Meeting (virtual), From Jam Circle to Classroom, 2024, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, Ottawa, CA, 10/01/23, CHAGS 13 (International Conference on Hunter Gatherer Research), Dublin, Ireland, 07/01/22, Naming, Understanding, and Playing with Metaphor in Music, virtual international symposium, 04/29/22 - 04/30/22, Performing Antiquities and Modernities: ‘Pygmy’ Song and BaAka Lives Within a Globally Imagined Iconicity, Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, 10/01/20, Society for Ethnomusicology roundtable, The Sounds of White Supremacy, 11/01/18, CHAGS 12 (international Conference on Hunter and Gatherer Research), 07/01/18, Theorizing Sound Writing, Society for Ethnomusicology, Denver Colorado, 11/01/17, Practices of Desire: The Implications of Erotic Subjectivity in Ethnomusicological Field Research, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 11/01/13, Afropop Worldwide Hip Deep feature on Seize the Dance!, 12/01/10, Tourism and its Double: Participation as Potential Emancipation From Topes of Colonialism and Primitivism in West Africa, 11/01/10, Writing the Magnified Musicking Moment, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 11/01/09, Jewish Communities of Sub-Saharan Africa, Hip Deep Series for Afro-Pop Worldwide, 2009, Ethnographic Research and Writing Strategies: Interactive Reflexivity and Beyond, Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) Annual Conference, Fall 2008, Wrestling with Some(Em)body, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/07, From Intangible to Material in Jewish Africa: A 5-year-Old Stand-in Gets Immersed in ‘Heritage’, Performance Studies International conference, 12/01/07, ’Pygmy Song’ and BaAka Lives: the impact of a globally imagined iconicity, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/03, Race, Memory and Notions of Difference in the Practice of Ethnography, Feminist Theory and Music 7, 07/01/03, Performing Piety: Popular Musics, Social Crisis, and Fundamentalist Ascendancy in the Central African Republic, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/02, Old Music and Dance for New Needs, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/00, What You Mean, `We'?: Method, Goal, and Identity in Academic `Ethno' Ensembles, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/99, The Poetics and Politics of Practice: Experience, Embodiment, and the Engagement of Scholarship, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/98, 'Pygmies' Within Globally Imagined Antiquities and Modernities: Reformulating an understanding of constructed authenticities, Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 10/01/98, Musical Performance, Field Experience, and the Poetic Frontier, Cross-Cultural Poetics conference, 10/01/97