Mission

The Center for World Performance Studies (CWPS), established in 2000, strives to be a place where boundaries are traversed and called into question.  The performing arts styles travel across borders with unprecedented freedom and performers enact the reality of a changing world through their art. The Center is dedicated to building an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary vocabulary which engages performance on a global scale, from the intensely local to the transnational.

Our goals are to:

• Bridge the gap between performance and scholarship;
• Bring into intellectual focus the increasing globalization of the performing arts;
• Take advantage of interdisciplinary opportunities at the University of Michigan.

CWPS Programs

The Graduate Student Residency program assists students in strengthening their analytic skills and in developing an awareness of the theoretical and aesthetic issues that have fueled debates in the field. CWPS offers  an ethnography and performance roundtable series which brings together graduate students and faculty from a diverse constellation of disciplines.

The Artist-in-Residency program provides annual short and long-term visiting artist/scholar residencies. CWPS hosts numerous scholarly and performance events that create vibrant discourse with other disciplines.

CWPS is home to The Project Transforming thru Performing, that received a three year funding grant from the Ford Foundation. Glenda Dickerson, professor of theatre & drama and head of the African-American Theatre minor, is director of the center. The CWPS Steering Committee meets several times annually to discuss CWPS events, and to review Graduate Student Residency program proposals, Artists-in-Residence proposals and other proposal submissions. Several CWPS faculty associates also participate in CWPS activities throughout the year.

Director's Message