Meet the speakers
We're thrilled to introduce you to our lineup of speakers for the Console-ing Passions 2024 held on June 20-22.
Moya Bailey
Moya Bailey is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University and is the founder of the Digital Apothecary and co-founder of the Black Feminist Health Science Studies Collective. Her work focuses on marginalized groups’ use of digital media to promote social justice, and she is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She is the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network and the Board President of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit-based movement media organization that supports an ever-growing network of activists and organizers. She is a co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, 2020) and is the author of Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (New York University Press, 2021).
Beatrice Capote
Beatrice Capote is an accomplished Cuban American contemporary dancer, choreographer, lecturer, and educator. She is renowned for creating Capotechnique™, a unique fusion of Afro-Cuban dance traditions with contemporary dance forms. Capote amplifies Afro-Cuban people, narratives, culture, and religion to break stereotypes within the contemporary dance world.
Capotechnique™ is one of Capote’s most significant contributions to the dance field. Her dance technique incorporates traditional Cuban movements, including dances of the Orishas, Rumba Cubana, and Palo, within a contemporary dance vocabulary. In addition to expanding movement practices, Capotechnique™ teaches dancers how to connect with story by engaging with and embodying Afro-Cuban narratives. This innovative approach has garnered attention and admiration within the dance community.
Capote’s choreographic work focuses on sharing narratives of Black women and African Diaspora stories that have been overlooked or neglected in history, bringing these revolutionary stories to light. Some of Capote’s notable pieces include “Reyita,” an Afro-Cuban woman’s narrative from the 20th century, “Yemaya: Rebirthing to Existence,” and “Machista.” Her works have been featured in prestigious festivals and venues such as the West Fest Dance Festival, Battery Dance Festival, BAAD! ASS Women's Festival, Amherst College, Casita Maria!, Contemporary Dance Series at Bryant Park, and Vision Festival.
Capote is recognized for choreographing various productions and collaborating with iconic artists. She choreographed for four-time Grammy award winner Angelique Kidjo on her newest musical “Yemandja!” She was invited to perform at Jazz at Lincoln Center with Grammy-nominated and award-winning artists Paquito D’Rivera, Wynton Marsalis, and the orchestra’s leader Mr. Elio VillaFranca. She choreographed “Citrus,” a chore-poem play at the regional theater Northern Stages and “The Wedding Band Musical” at Montclair State University, and she has received choreographic commissions from esteemed organizations such as the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The Dark Elegy Project, inspired by Suse Lowenstein, which was performed at Gibney Dance. Capote’s recent work as Yoruba Consultant/Choreographer in the off-Broadway production “The Half God of Rainfall” by Inua Elms at the New York Theatre Workshop was featured in The New York Times.
An experienced educator, Capote has taught at various institutions, including Montclair State University, The Ailey School, Gibney Dance, MOVENYC, EMIA, and the Joffrey Ballet School. She has served as a guest artist and mentor at universities and dance institutions, sharing Capotechnique™ and inspiring the next generation of dancers. Capote has also contributed to the dance community in various capacities. She co-curated Pepatián's Dancing La Botanica: La Tierra Vive project and Bronx Arts and Conversation showcase, and she co-founded Sabrosura Effect dance company serving the public with performances and workshops.
Capote earned an A.A. from University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and B.A. in dance education and M.F.A. in dance from Montclair State University. Her M.F.A. thesis choreography was featured on Bronx NETTV. She has performed for prestigious choreographers such as Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Matthew Rushing, Darrell Moultrie, Christal Brown’s INSPIRIT, a dance company, Sita Frederick’s Areytos Performance Works.
Capote is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance at Indiana University Bloomington. She is in her seventh season dancing with Bessie Award-winning and Tony-nominated Camille A. Brown & Dancers. Capote remains dedicated to expanding her solo choreographic work and further developing Capotechnique™, continuing to make significant contributions to the field of dance.
Misha Kavka
Misha Kavka is Professor of Cross-Media Culture at the University of Amsterdam and co-founder of the research group Queer Analysis at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. She has published widely on gender, sexuality, celebrity and affect in relation to television, film and media technologies. She is the author of Reality Television, Affect and Intimacy (2008) and Reality TV (2012), and the co-editor of volumes and special issues on reality television, gothic culture and feminist theory.
Radhika Parameswaran
Radhika Parameswaran is Associate Dean and Herman B Wells Endowed Professor (Class of 1950) in The Media School, Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research areas span feminist cultural studies, globalization and media, postcolonial media studies, South Asia, and qualitative research methods. Her major publications include a 2013 Wiley-Blackwell edited encyclopedic volume on global audience studies, two monographs in Journalism & Communication Monographs, more than 30 articles in leading academic journals (five reprinted as book chapters), and sixteen original book chapters. She is a recipient of the International Communication Association’s Teresa Award for outstanding feminist scholarship and a two-time recipient of the Journalism department’s Gretchen Kemp Award for outstanding teaching. She served as editor of Communication, Culture and Critique, an official journal of the International Communication Association, from 2014 to 2016. Her service on journal editorial boards includes Journal of Communication, Women’s Studies in Communication, Asian Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Communication Monographs, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies. She has appeared on and been interviewed by a wide range of news and popular media outlets (CNN, Al Jazeera, and Web MD among others). She was a visiting research professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania; Faculty-in-Residence at University of Colorado, Boulder; and an invited expert at the National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar. She was inducted into her alma mater, University of Iowa’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication Hall of Fame, in 2021.