Dr. Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin (known as “Dr. Amma”) practices and studies the intersections of academic history and performance (i.e. theatre, film, and television). Her research interests center on the African Diaspora, particularly the impact of the transatlantic slave trade in her homeland of Ghana, and how performance mediates the interactions between continental Africans, first-generation Africans in the U.S., and African-Americans. NOTABLE WORKS: Her current projects are a manuscript and historical musical about African and African- American performers in the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. The book, The Battle Before ‘The Souls of Black Folk’, is a comparative examination of African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois’s early writings and the U.S.’s first world’s fair of the 20th century, which was held in Buffalo, New York. The historical musical, “At Buffalo,” is a methodological-innovation in “performing the archive,” a concept developed by Dr. Amma through her workshops with theatre and dance students.