Performance

Ava Koohbor

Poet, Visual, and Sound Artist
Ava Koohbor gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2022, part of the Spring 2022 Flash Reading Series.

Ava Koohbor is a native Farsi-speaker poet and visual artist who now lives in San Francisco. Many of her poems have been appeared in various magazines. Her chapbook, Triangle Squared, a fictional conversation among John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Morton Feldman, has been published by Bootstrap Press. She’s now working with poet Patrick James Dunagan on translating Hafez’s poems from Farsi into English. She...

nunu kong

Choreographer, Performance Artist, and Producer
nunu kong was a Visiting Artist Panel Participant at the Temporal Shifts Symposium at the Arts Research Center on February 1, 2013.

nunu kong is an independent choreographer, performance artist and producer who graduated from a unique 4-year program (the only comprehensive contemporary dance program ever in China) founded by Yang Mei Qi at the Beijing Dance Academy in 2004. Nunu established her own independent dance project brand nu Dance in 2007 which seeks to shift a common, outdated preoccupation with Chineseness and national culture towards the more honest expression...

Meiling Cheng

Dramaturg, Professor of Dramatic Arts in Theatre Critical Studies at the USC School of Dramatic Arts
Meiling Cheng was a Visiting Lecturer Panel Participant at the Temporal Shifts Symposium at the Arts Research Center on February 1, 2013.

Meiling Cheng is professor of dramatic arts in theatre critical studies at the USC School of Dramatic Arts.

Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, Dr. Cheng came to this country in 1986 to study at the Yale University School of Drama, where she received her MFA degree in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism in 1989 and DFA degree in Theatre Arts in 1993. At Yale, she worked as a dramaturg with August Wilson on his Pulitzer Prize-winning...

Karen Kipphoff

Artist and Professor at the Norwegian Theatre Academy
Karen Kipphoff was a Visiting Scholar Panel Participant at the Nordic Time Zones Symposium at the Arts Research Center on March 26, 2014.

Karen Kipphoff has been employed as a professor at Norwegian Theatre Academy (NTA) at Østfold University College since 2012 (60% position). From 1999 to 2011, she held the position of professor in visual arts with a focus on installation and performance (100%) at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway. Kipphoff is currently the program coordinator for Master in Scenography at the NTA (HiØ).

Kipphoff is an artist...

Maurya Kerr

2021/22 ARC Fellow – Poetry & the Senses
Maurya Kerr was an ARC Fellow in Fall 2021 & Spring 2022 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – she was chosen in the Community Fellow category.

Maurya Kerr is a bay area-based writer, educator, and artist. Maurya’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and appears or is forthcoming in multiple journals, including Inverted Syntax, Chestnut Review, Tupelo Quarterly, little somethings press, and an anthology, “The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry.” Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on Black...

Sean San José

Writer, Director, Performer, and Co-Founder of Campo Santo
Sean San José was a Visiting Artist Panel Participant at the Chavez Ravine Conference and Performances at the Arts Research Center on March 4, 2016.

Sean San José is a writer, director, performer, and co-founder of Campo Santo, a new performance group for People of Color in San Francisco. Founded in 1996, Campo Santo is committed to developing new performance and to nurturing People of Color centered new audiences and has premiered over 100 new pieces. For 15 years, he was the Program Director of Performance under Deborah Cullinan, alongside Kevin B. Chen & Rebeka...

Paul Ramírez Jonas

Public Installation, Sculpture, Video, and Performance Artist, and Professor, Art Department Chair, at the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University.
Paul Ramírez Jonas gave a Visiting Artist Presentation at the Arts Research Center on October 12, 2014.

Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in Pomona, California in 1965 and raised in Honduras. Educated at Brown University (BA, 1987) and Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1989), Ramírez Jonas, currently lives and works in Ithaca NY.

Over the last thirty years Ramírez Jonas has created works that range from large-scale public installations and monumental sculptures to intimate drawings, performances and videos. Through his practice he seeks to challenge...

Kurt Johannessen

Artist in Performance, Video, Books, and Installations
Kurt Johannessen was a Visiting Artist Panel Participant at the Nordic Time Zones Symposium at the Arts Research Center on March 26, 2014.

Born 1960 in Norway, Kurt Johannessen works within performance artist's books video and installations since the early eighties. His work is minimalist and poetic, and at times with a touch of humour. He is his own publisher and has produced more than 50 books, many of them translated into English. The books vary from just one sentence to short stories or just pictures. He has created more than 150 different performances and has...

Blossom Johnson

ARC Indigenous Performing Arts Residency AIR, Diné playwright, Screenwriter and Dramaturg
Blossom Johnson is the ARC Indigenous Performing Arts Residency's first-ever artist-in-residence (2024).

Blossom Johnson is a Diné storyteller, playwright, teaching artist and screenwriter. She is from the Yé’ii Dine’é Táchii’nii (Giant People) clan, and her maternal grandfather is from the Deeshchíí’nii (Start of the Red Streak People) clan.

She was raised by her grandmother on the very top of Dził Yijiin (Black Mesa), AZ and she’s always been surrounded by stories. When she opens the front door of her grandma’s yellow house, she can see a coal mine. Below the mesa...

Ra Malika Imhotep

Black Feminist Writer, Performance Artist, and PhD Candidate of African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley
Ra Malika Imhotep gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2022, part of the Spring 2022 Flash Reading Series.

Ra Malika Imhotep is a Black feminist writer and performance artist from Atlanta, Georgia currently pursuing a doctoral degree in African Diaspora Studies at the University of California, Berkeley with a Designated Emphasis in New Media. Their academic and creative work tends the relationships between Black femininity, Southern vernacular aesthetics, and the performance of labor. They are a co-convener of the embodied spiritual-...