05/15/2026
Attention Knights of Malta (US) Florida Grand Priory:
Join us on Wednesday, May 20, at 12:00 PM on GL 220 for the lecture and musical presentation by Elizabeth Castillo Mena. "Improvisation as a Black Method: Fusion Music and Politics in the Dominican Republic.”
Many popular music genres in the Dominican Republic are rooted in improvisation. In Afro-Dominican cultural expressions, particularly fusion music, improvisation functions as a dialogue between Afrodiasporic cultural practices and individual subjectivity. Drawing on the idea of musical improvisation as a means of making “negotiations of (material and discursive) subjectivity audible” (Siddall and Waterman 2016), this talk explores improvisation in fusion music as a device for self-determination within Black communities.
Through historical and ethnographic accounts alongside musical analysis, the presentation examines how improvisation communicates political statements about identity, ethno-racial dynamics, and belonging. Afro-Dominican fusion music, it argues, is reshaping both local and transnational understandings of dominicanidad (Dominicanness) and diasporic expressions of Blackness.
This event is presented in collaboration with the FIU Libraries and the Institute for Cuban Studies. DM Grand Prior to reserve your attendance. State of Knights Organization of American States (OAS) The White House CARICOM: Caribbean Community knightsofmaltaus.org