Intro

Jadele McPherson, Ph.D. is an artist-scholar who has produced an extensive body of work as a vocalist, musician, and theatermaker. She wields her voice and creates sound art to produce collaborative projects based in Black experimental and improvisational lineages, and to explore healing and embodied memory in the African Diaspora. Her interdisciplinary theater collective Lukumi Arts (2008), has produced an array of projects focused on sound and healing, and mutual aid that narrate local histories and then immerse audiences in those stories through live, interactive musical experiences. As an artist and anthropologist she is interested in studying the impact of sound on social and cultural movements throughout the African Diaspora, with a focus on Afro-Cuban arts and intra-Caribbean migrations. Her current work amplifies the stories of Afro-Latinx artists and historical actors who participated in labor organizing, securing medical care, forming mutual aid networks and dismantling racial segregation in the U.S. Dr. McPherson is currently revising her dissertation Vamos a Vencer-We Will Overcome: The Sonic Performances of Afro-Cubans in Tampa into her first book manuscript.

Dr. McPherson is a recent graduate of the CUNY Graduate Center where she was the CUNY Dissertation Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture from 2022-23. Her most recent artistic work includes performance explorations of the orisha Yemayá, syncretized with the Virgen de Regla, through several collaborations in music, theater and Afro-Cuban performance across the country. She also served as the Dramaturg of (pray) by nicHi Douglas and composed by S T A R R Busby and JJJJJJerome Ellis produced by Ars Nova and The National Black Theatre (NBT) in New York, NY. IN 2024, Jadele released TEMPO IROKO, a new recording series featuring orisha songs, with the first EP dedicated to the guardian of the crossroads, Elegguá. More of Dr. McPherson’s work is here.

Living Away is a new initiative created in NYC to support international artists. Our intention is to create events that provide a place for experimentation in live arts practices and the development of a community that involves the creators and the audience. This platform is an open space for collaboration, the nurturing of networks and provides assistance in the development of art projects. More about Living Away and its creators Gabriela Burdsall and William Ruiz Morales here: https://www.livingaway.org/