Genevieve Hyacinthe (Board Member) teaches art history at Purchase College (State University of New York) with particular focus on art since 1945, West African art and its Diaspora, performance art and ritual more broadly, as well as issues of globalism. At Purchase she also directs a West African-based dance troupe and teaches a hybrid lecture and studio course on the subject. She has been studying and performing West African dance and drumming for twelve years, during which time, She has studied with gifted artists in West Africa, the United States, and Europe. She is currently developing a not-for-profit organization to help artists, particularly, but not limited to, dancers, in Mali and Guinea, West Africa. Her current manuscript in development reconsiders the artists JM Basquiat and Ana Mendieta and their political activism in paint and performance respectively in 1980s New York. Part of this work will be presented at the University of Liège, Belgium, March 21-23, as part of the “What is Africa to Me Now” conference on the continent and its literary diasporas. She is currently writing on Doundounba West African dance structures as a contemporary art aesthetic.