June 12, 2026 | 9:00AM
Franke Institute, Logan Center, Museum of Contemporary Art
On June 12-13, 2026, the University of Chicago will host the Caribbean Intensities in Music and Sound Symposium. This two-day symposium and public humanities gathering brings together scholars, artists, and community-based cultural workers from across the Caribbean and the United States to explore “intensity” as both a sonic descriptor and an analytic for understanding how force is distributed, condensed, experienced, and felt through regional music and sound.
Caribbean music is so often described through its extremes: the loudness of champeta, the speed of wylers, the “likkle but tallawah” diminutive of regional artists, the gregarious exuberance of fête culture, the outlandish aesthetics of dancehall and shotta, the explicitness of bouyon, the heat of perreo, or the fervor of devotional musics. These descriptions circle experiences with intensity in Caribbean sonic practices that we also hear and feel in regional terms like "groove," "tumbao," "drive," "cadencia," "dembow," "tempo," and "fuerza." Rather than treating these popular sayings and vocabulary as clichés of excess, we wonder how we might think critically with them.
The program features traditional research presentations and a live performance by the Caribbean band Gizzae. Guests will also visit the Museum of Contemporary Art to view the Dancing the Revolution: From Dancehall to Reggaetón exhibition. This exhibition explores and expands the visual, political, and spiritual histories of dancehall and reggaetón through contemporary art—two dynamic genres that have transcended their grassroots origins to shape global culture. Dancing the Revolution positions music and dance as a revolutionary practice for collective liberation rooted in the struggle against colonial oppression.
The symposium is co-organized by Jessica Swanston Baker (Associate Professor of Music, UChicago), Vicky Mogollón Montagne (Postdoctoral Fellow in Music, UChicago), and Ayanna Williams (Department of Music Coordinator, UChicago).
Support for the symposium is provided by UChicago Global, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, Caribbean Studies, and the Department of Music. Additional support for the concert is provided by friends of the Logan Center.