Georgetown University Department of Performing Arts

This Sunday at 2pm, see and hear your fellow Georgetown students perform original songs and rock the house! Featuring the bands CORNERBOOTH, HIEROGLYPH, MARGIN, RUMSPRINGA, and the artists CHARLES ADORNEY and GUS DOTSON, JACK GERYOL, MANYA, LYDIA NATHENSON! Reserve your free ticket at the link in our bio.

Heart to Harp: An Autoethnography of Music and Meaning. A Senior Capstone Project by Caroline Lacitignola.
Join us on April 22, 5:30–6:30 PM at Devine Theatre (no registration required). This lecture-recital explores the harp as both a musical instrument and a powerful symbol, drawing on Caroline’s original senior capstone research.
Tracing the harp’s evolution from its origins to its place in contemporary performance, the program examines how history, spirituality, and social meaning have shaped the instrument. Through performance and reflection, audiences are invited to consider not only how the harp sounds, but what it does—how it transforms spaces and mediates experience.

Join us next Friday for Fado Meets Persian Music! Reserve your free ticket at the link in our bio. Cristina Clara is a Portuguese singer whose work draws inspiration from traditional Portuguese songs, including Fado, and from the musical traditions of other Portuguese-speaking countries such as Cape Verde and Brazil. Joined by guitarist Pedro Loch, she brings a repertoire shaped by oral tradition, poetic nuance, and a contemporary sensibility. In partnership with Iranian composer and multi-instrumentalist Behfar Bahadoran, this concert creates a dialogue between Portuguese and Persian-rooted musical languages, tracing shared emotional depth, subtlety, and openness to reinvention.

Listening Guide to Incarceration

March 20 & 21 – 7pm
March 22 – 2pm
Devine Studio Theatre, Davis Performing Arts Center
Tickets from $7.50- Through the link in bio.

Listening Guide to Incarceration is a staged documentary performance exploring how sound shapes life inside prison. Moving from 1930s prison work songs to contemporary recordings from the DC Jail, the work traces a shift from music as expression to sound as environment.

Through reenactment, lecture, live music, field recordings, and participatory listening exercises, the performance introduces carceral acoustemology—learning to know, trust, and navigate the world through sound within enclosure.

As historical labor songs dissolve into the ambient noise of modern incarceration, audiences are invited to listen for survival: locks, keys, vents, voices, fluorescent lights, kitchen rhythms, and phone tones become sources of knowledge. The program culminates in First Bluebird by composer Carlos Simon, a live musical reflection on confinement and imagined flight.

Blending scholarship, lived experience, and composition, this work reimagines listening as a vital, embodied practice.

Co-sponsored by the Prisons and Justice Initiative
Created by Benjamin J. Harbert · Joel Castón · Michael Woody
Music by Carlos Simon

Performed by Hakeem Henderson (tenor), Ben Capps (cello), Amanda Halstead (piano)
Animation: Neon Zoo (Joumana Ismail; Elyse Kelly)

Experience an exciting afternoon as GU students take the stage to perform their own original music and lyrics across a variety of styles and genres. Get your tickets through the link in bio!

Thank you to DC Theater Arts for the wonderful write up for Orlando! You can view the full article in our bio.
Two shows remaining! Get your tickets today through the link in bio. ASL interpreted performance on Nov 22.

Tickets still available for Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando! Two showings today at 2pm or 8pm and Nov 20-22. ASL interpreted Nov 22. Get your tickets through the link in bio!

Announcing the 2025-2026 Department of Performing Arts Dance Series!

The new DPA Dance Series brings together the Georgetown community through open classes, workshops, and masterclasses led by inspiring artists. Whether you’re an experienced dancer or just curious to try something new, all are welcome to join this celebration of creativity and community. No registration required.

September 24, 8:30PM, Devine Theatre: Hip Hop Open Class led by Groove Theory.
Groove Theory is Georgetown University’s first and only co-ed hip hop dance crew, known for its high-energy performances and strong presence at campus events and local competitions.

October 20, time TBD: Musical Theater Open Class led by Broadway’s Ben Bogen
Stay tuned for more details!