About

I am a Los Angeles-born and -based ethnomusicologist, writer, performing artist, and freelance performing arts journalist whose work focuses on how creative practices, including music, dance, theater, and creative writing, engage with the political economies of violence, grief, mourning rituals, and human rights. I received my PhD in ethnomusicology from UCLA, where my research explored the relationship between narratives about sexual violence, Latino/a “soundscapes,” and lower-caste female dancers who perform for tourists in Goa, India. In 2021, I conceived and was the guest editor for Sonora Review’s special issue, “Extinction,” which considers how gender-based violence relates to other forms of annihilation—against the planet, other species, and ourselves. I recently completed a dark comedy play, and am working on a fictionalized ethnography based on the research I conducted in Mozambique, India, Portugal, and the United States, amongst other projects.


I currently work at UCLA and also teach courses in the online Human Rights Practice Program at the University of Arizona, where I am also an affiliated faculty member for the Applied Intercultural Arts Research Program. Through this work, I have been able to develop opportunities for students to work with and learn from renowned human rights activists and performing and literary artists, including Amazonian- and trans-rights activist Dandara Rudsan, #Me Too Movement founder Tarana Burke, performance artist and poet, Alok Vaid Menon, author Lacy M. Johnson, and Indian Dance Movement Therapy pioneer Sohini Chakraborty.