Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum, Professor of Ethnomusicology at Illinois State University brings to UGA the intersection of scholarship and performance that embodies the discipline of Ethnomusicology. Her body of work straddles indigenous, historic, contemporary, continental and diasporic Africa.
Aduonum’s signature presentation, also the African Studies Institute Spring Lecture on March 3 at 3:30 p.m. in Ramsey Hall in the Performing Arts Center, is her solo award winning music/dance/drama Walking with my Ancestors a performance crafted from research in one of the slave holdings in Cape Coast, Ghana.
The performance will be preceded by a lecture at 11 a.m. in HHSOM room 355 that sets the stage for the performance. Later in the week on March 5, she will also give a keynote lecture in Edge recital hall at 12:30 p.m. on the process of research that dictated but also culminated in the performance as the better representation of her work than a written paper.
Aduonum is arguably the most accomplished female ‘master drummer’ of Ghanaian music traditions in the American academy who is both a scholar and a performer. She will, as part of her residency, conduct workshops on Ghanaian drum/song/dance on Monday and Wednesday at 11:15 a.m.
All events are free and open to public.