Performance Studies Parents and Alumni Day Panel
The Department of Performance Studies is excited to celebrate Parents and Alumni Weekend with a virtual panel this year!
Join us for this conversation with PS students and alumni; Garet Weissenborn (BA '22), winner of the Marc and Ruti Bell Public Service Scholarship; Bobbie Boettinger (BA '21), Tisch Undergraduate Student Council President; Aarlene Vielot (BA '20), current MA candidate; and Ruhi Bhalla (BA '18), Sr. Coordinator of Social Impact, ViacomCBS' Entertainment and Youth Group. Moderated by Professor Malik Gaines, Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Register through the main Parents and Alumni Weekend Registration here. There wil be two presentations of this panel:
Saturday, October 24th - 9:30 -10:15am EST
Saturday, October 24th - 2:45-3:30pm EST
Panelist Bios:
Ruhi Bhalla: Ruhi is a Senior Coordinator for the Social Impact team across the Entertainment and Youth brands at ViacomCBS. She works to amplify social justice movements by working alongside non-profits on content integrations for various social issues, and on storytelling-driven impact campaigns. Recent works include: 16 and Recovering, Are You The One?, Save Our Moms, Leaders for Change, and +1 the Vote.
Ruhi holds a Bachelor's degree in Performance Studies with a minor in Documentary Production from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. During her time at NYU, Ruhi participated in a documentary production program in Havana, Cuba. Additionally, she was involved in the Fusion Film Festival and interned in television development at ViacomCBS.
Bobbie Boettinger: Bobbie is a singer/songwriter from Roseland, New Jersey who is a member of the Class of 2021. While being a Performance Studies Major with a Business of Entertainment, Media and Technology Minor, she primarily focuses on Critical Race Studies within the music industry specifically Rap/Hip-Hop music along with R&B music. Her musical influences are Amy Winehouse and Rihanna, leading her to also focus on women empowerment within the heavily male dominated genres within the industry. Outside of PS and music, Bobbie loves to be involved within the Tisch community. Bobbie is President of the Tisch Undergraduate Student Council this year along with being Guest Speaker Correspondence co-head for the NYU Diversity Arts Festival.
Aarlene Vielot: Aarlene is a recent B.A. Performance Studies graduate and current M.A. candidate at PS. During her undergrad, Aarlene’s main focus was the connection between performance, technology, and consumerism. Her final Capstone project, Encoding Bias: Facial Recognition and the Maintenance of the Status Quo, delved into the complex relationship between human bias and computer coding, investigating how biased humans have created biased technology. Now during her graduate studies, Aarlene’s area of research is affect and music, specifically exploring how music creates affective responses. She plans on applying this research in the future to her career as a Music Supervisor.
Garet Weissenborn: Garet is a queer scholar, writer, and creative from Albuquerque, New Mexico who is a member of the BA Class of 2022. In between his endeavors in filmmaking, writing, dancing, and creating, he studies Global Public Health alongside Performance Studies with specific focuses on LGBTQ+ studies, media, and entertainment. He is particularly interested in the intersection between performance and health, and is the recipient of the Marc and Ruti Bell Public Service Scholarship. He hopes to merge his talents in poetry, media, health, and entertainment in order to provide more restorative sexual and mental health resources to queer and trans youth in schools and beyond.
He is currently the Education and Training Intern at the NYU LGBTQ+ Center, and when he's not facilitating and coordinating educational programs he runs a digital media platform @ProjecTranscend and publication The Drop with three other NYU Tisch students that are focused on BIPOC and QTGN 20 something creatives and their experiences with pop culture, art, education, and health & wellness. On-campus he was involved with Delta Lambda Phi Fraternity and First-Year Queers and Allies leadership program. And because he can't get enough facilitating, he is also a Peer Mentor for Project Outreach, a first-year pre-orientation program centered around community service and social justice education.