Latin America Research Seminar: “From Archive to Adaptation and Voice”
Presenter: Anna Deeny Morales, Adjunct Professor, Center for Latin American Studies
Abstract: How do characters emerge from archives? What’s the bridge between people as they are registered in time on archival documents, scores, photographs, or paintings, and current, voiced representations? Anna Deeny Morales will talk about the processes involved in the research, adaptation, and creation of new operas that form part of a Latin American and Latine opera tradition.
Bio: Anna Deeny Morales works in music and poetry as a librettist, translator, and literary critic. Recent works include Las Místicas de México, an interactive opera that debuts in March, 2024, with the IN Series and the Children’s Chorus of Washington at the Dupont Circle Underground and the Mexican Cultural Institute. ZAVALA-ZAVALA: an opera in v cuts, with score by Brian Arreola, premiered with the IN Series and the Georgetown University Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in 2022, and will be performed at Gala Hispanic Theater in 2024. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow for her translation of Latin America’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature, Gabriela Mistral, Deeny Morales has translated volumes of poetry by Raúl Zurita, Nicanor Parra, Amanda Berenguer, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Mercedes Roffé, among others. Her works in opera and poetry have been supported by the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She received a BA in English Literature with a minor in Piano Performance from Shepherd University; an MA in Comparative Literature, with a focus on Puerto Rican theater, from Dartmouth College; and a PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from UC, Berkeley. In Rome, she studied theater at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica. Her book, Other Solitudes: Essays on Consciousness and Poetry, is forthcoming in 2025.
LARS will meet twice a month, on the second and fourth Wednesdays from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. (see schedule below). Lunch will be served.
To see the full LARS schedule, please visit: https://clas.georgetown.edu/research/latin-america-research-seminar-lars/