EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

DATE: 5 p.m. Feb. 8, 2017

EVENT: The University of Michigan Women of Color in the Academy Project will present its 6th annual Shirley Verrett Award to Anita Gonzalez, a professor who heads the Global Theatre and Ethnic Studies minor in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

The goal of the minor is to introduce students to literature and performance histories of diverse cultures, and to use studio practice to create new work from a diverse cultural perspective. Her research and publication interests are in the fields of ethnic performance, 19th-century theater, maritime performance, and the way in which performance reveals histories and identities in the Americas and in transnational contexts.

The Shirley Verrett Award was created in 2011 by the Office of the Senior Vice Provost in honor of the late Shirley Verrett, a teacher who “would have walked the world over for her students.” The award is administered by WOCAP at the Center for the Education of Women, and recognizes a faculty member whose teaching, performance, scholarship or service supports the success of female students or faculty in the arts who come from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds.

Verrett was a James Earl Jones Distinguished University Professor of Voice at the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, as well as an internationally acclaimed opera singer who was one of the pioneering leaders in the generation of black opera singers. She performed more than 40 roles all over the world during the course of her four-decade career.

A reception will immediately follow the event.

PLACE: Stamps Auditorium, 1226 Murfin Ave. Ann Arbor

INFORMATION: Admission is free and open to the public. Non-ticketed registration is requested at myumi.ch/L489N.

SPONSOR: U-M Women of Color in the Academy Project