Performing Arts

In March, “Golden” from the film “KPop Demon Hunters” became the first K-Pop song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. Celebrating that moment at the 98th Academy Awards was DaEun Jung, a UC Riverside assistant professor of dance, who participated in a live performance of “Golden” as a Korean cultural consulting choreographer and dancer. 

Sara Hovda, a student in the Master of Fine Arts program at UC Riverside, has won the 2026 Trio Award for her debut poetry manuscript, “Night’s Grammar.” “I was honestly beside myself,” Hovda said.

A spirited new multimedia exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution tells the story of salsa with the help of a UC Riverside associate professor of music. 

Erika Villeroy da Costa, a graduate student in critical dance studies at UC Riverside, has been awarded a 2026 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship. Da Costa will use the $52,000 grant to support her research on first-generation members of the Afro-Brazilian dance troupe Balé Folclórico Mercedes Baptista.

Allison Benis White’s most recent poetry collection, “A Magnificent Loneliness,”  was awarded the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. “This recognition of ‘A Magnificent Loneliness’ is what writers dream about," White said. "And I’m grateful to represent UC Riverside, and our Creative Writing Department, with this honor.”