Solena Ornelas

Solena Ornelas (she/her) is an Afro-Boricua-Mexican classically trained bassist, political theorist, and interdisciplinary artist. Her professional practice spans the institutional and electoral theaters of Black and Afro-Latine American politics. She is particularly concerned with the re-animation of the Black radical tradition and the possibilities of Afrofuturism within contemporary Black political engagement.

Her work approaches Black political behavior as theater, necessary theater, and considers how performance shapes political representation, collective identity, and the possibilities of liberation. She is equally interested in the political life of sound: how it survives, is transformed by, and resists the enduring structures of colonialism and white supremacy, particularly through its historical role in political movements. Across her scholarly and artistic practices, Solena continues to ruminate on and struggle through questions of community, communication, and sound.

Why Performance Studies at NYU?
Studying Performance Studies felt like a necessary trajectory. After completing my MA in Art and Public Policy at NYU, I realized I wasn’t quite finished sitting with the questions that had brought me there in the first place. If anything, I had accumulated more questions than answers (which I suppose is the point). I wanted to continue thinking through them, struggling with them, and developing the theoretical frameworks that might allow me to approach familiar questions in unfamiliar ways.

Education
Dominican University of California
BA, Music Performance and Political Science 

New York University
MA, Art and Public Policy