Allison Lewis

Allison Lewis is currently a Doctoral student in the American Studies Department at the University of Kansas. She holds a BM in vocal performance with a focus in operatic studies as a mezzo soprano and an MA in African and African American Studies from the same university. Allison is a three-time FLAS (Foreign Language Area Study) fellow in Wolof. Her research interests include music and power, Black feminist theory, and performance studies. She has presented her research on Black opera and institutional racism at the American Studies Association (2022) and the American Musicology Society (2022). Her more recent artistic work includes musical consultant and singer for the KU Theater production of In the Blood (2019), Urinetown: The Home Video Musical (2020), and Everybody (2022), director of an outreach program for Black middle school singers at the KC Melting Pot Theater (2019), and writer/director of a visual album called Reflections Through the River, based on the music of Margaret Bonds. Her dissertation will utilize a performance methodology in order to examine representations of Black children in opera and the potential of opera as a tool for Black, feminist, liberatory politics.