Maryam Elhabashy, “Cupping and Wellness Among Muslims In the Baltimore-Washington Area”
Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health (Anthropology program)
Mentor: Dr. Bambi Chapin

The purpose of my research is to identify forms of emotional management and strategies used by death care workers as they perform emotional labor. The goal is to provide better insight of backstage, or hidden, procedure in mitigating emotions.

While completing the final writing of her dissertation, she directed Red Velvet, Lolita Chakrabarti's play about Ira Aldridge, the 19th century Black Shakespearean actor, for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. Describing her work directing Red Velvet, Dr. Basfield Dunlap wrote, "Theatre educates, empowers, and inspires in ways unlike any entertainment field in the world. Telling Aldridge's story is timely and necessary, as we experience concerns in today's entertainment industry all too similar to those he encountered during the 1800s." 

Dr. Basfield Dunlap expressed her fierce commitment to inclusion through this and many other productions. As a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and an unwavering advocate for the powerful contributions of African American directors to American theatre, Dr. Basfield Dunlap's directing credits are too numerous to list. A sample includes multidisciplinary productions developed and staged in collaboration with Morgan's Theatre, Visual Arts and Music departments and many community members such as Raisin, the Musical; Ragtime, the Musical; Sarafina!; Crowns; The Color Purple; and, The Wiz. A widely respected director in the Baltimore area and well beyond, Dr. Basfield Dunlap was honored with a nomination from Woodie King and Ian Gallanar and offered membership in the prestigious American Theatre Conference in summer 2018.

When UMBC hosted the national Imagining America conference in collaboration with Morgan State University, Towson University, Maryland Institute of Art and over 50 community organizations, Dr. Basfield Dunlap coordinated three sessions for the conference including a powerful opening session with Morgan students and another keynote session for which she directed a dramatic reading of Langston Hughes' "Let America be America Again." Orgaizers and participants of subsequent Imaging America conferences are still talking about the powerful and beautiful sessions she created and led in 2015.

Dr. Basfield Dunlap brought diligence, commitment, and generosity to the LLC community where she was beloved for her humor, critical questions, spirituality and creative thought and action. She told us, "Jump...the net will come!" And so, we jumped, knowing that we would learn, laugh and be inspired when Shirley was in the room. She did not need the doctoral degree to pursue African American theater directing and scholarship as she was already the expert when she stepped into the classroom. Yet, she was intent on becoming "Dr." Basfield Dunlap and so she did in record time, mentoring her LLC mentors along the way.

To see her working as a director, attend the magnificent plays she directed, and to know her as a friend and colleague has been a treasured gift. Just as she ended all her emails and encounters, we wish her the "peace and blessings" she so generously shared with everyone she encountered on her journey. Our deepest sympathies and love are with her family and closest friends as we learn to live in a diminished world without Shirley's light.

The LLC Community will come together on Friday, June 19th from 3-4 p.m. in a virtual moment of reflection, celebration, and laughter about our dear alum. Personal stories and reflections welcomed. Please feel free to join us:

We commemorate Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and the countless other Black individuals that have lost their lives to police brutality. These murders demonstrate hate and a racist system that has sanctioned violence and injustice towards the Black community for centuries. We are saddened by and frustrated with this narrative that continuously devalues Black lives and we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and all who are showing their support at protests across the world.  

We, the staff at the CADVC, are committed to creating a space where our community can have a dialogue about important cultural and aesthetic issues in art, design, and visual culture. It is our mission to uplift the work and voices of artists, and we always strive to feature Black artists and provide them with a platform that reaches our UMBC community and surrounding Baltimore area.

Over the next eight weeks, we will be revisiting the late Maurice Berger’s Race Stories, as published in the New York Times and featured on our website. In 2018, Maurice was awarded the International Center of Photograph’s Infinity Award for his work on these essays, which explore the relationship between race and photographic portrayal of race. To learn more about Maurice and his work on Race Stories, please reference his website and the video about the project linked below.  

We begin this series by looking at “Capturing the Struggle for Racial Equality, Past and Present,” next week, Monday June 22 on our social media and myUMBC page.

This social media project is curated by Madeline Arbutus, CADVC intern.

Maurice’s website: https://mberger104.journoportfolio.com/

Race Stories video: https://mediastorm.com/clients/2018-icp-infinity-awards-maurice-berger