Biography
Yunina Barbour-Payne is a scholar/artist whose interdisciplinary scholarship involves Africana studies, Appalachian studies, folklore and performance. Barbour-Payne has experience as a performer, dramaturg, director and playwright. Her teaching and research areas include, Black performance theory, Black theatre and performance, Theatre with and for Youth, Black feminisms, Black Appalachian performance traditions and Affrilachian (Black artists experiences in Appalachia) aesthetics. As an actor, some of her favorite roles include Clyde in Ground Floor Theatre’s production of Lynn Nottage’s Clydes, Edna Thomas in Penfold Theatre’s world premiere of War of the Worlds, and Sally Mae in the Ensemble Theatre’s production of Too Heavy for Your Pocket. In addition to her stage work, Barbour-Payne combines her love of history, art and performance through her commitment to museum theatre, historical interpretation and archive based performance art. She merges her artistry and scholarship as the founder of the Affrilachian Memory Plays, an archived based performance inquiry for celebrating Affrilachian identity in its various creative iterations.

Her scholar/artist performance works have been presented at Fusebox Festival in Austin, Texas, the International Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem North Carolina, Hillwood Estates in Washington DC, Fade to Black Play Festival in Houston, Texas and Boulder Fringe Festival in Boulder Colorado. Her performances can be found at the Museum of Blacksburg Odd Fellows Hall and have been presented at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston Texas, the Elizabeth Ney Museum and Art Galleries at Black Studies in Austin, Texas.  In addition to her onstage work, she is a dramaturg with Gesel Mason Performance Project’s Yes AND, a performance project that recenters Black womanhood as the norm and operating force in the creative process

Barbour-Payne holds a Ph.D. in Theatre with an emphasis in Women and Gender Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.A. in Performance Studies with a focus in Africana Studies from Texas A&M University.