Soundscape with Rita Burns and Ronya-Lee Anderson

Soundscape with Rita Burns and Ronya-Lee Anderson is a live, in-gallery performance created in response to *Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise: The Phillips Collection Juried Exhibition*. Burns and Anderson will build a soundscape around songs selected by artists represented in the exhibition, bringing music, memory, movement, and storytelling into conversation with the gallery setting. The event is seated.

Rita Burns is a Washington, DC–based DJ, dance artist, educator, radio host, and culture bearer. Her work examines the connections among music, movement, memory, and community, drawing on dance, performance, Black social dance traditions, and the cultural history of the Washington region. She co-hosts *Meeting In The Ladies’ Room* on WPFW 89.3 FM, where she presents music spanning jazz, house, African diasporic traditions, and contemporary culture.

Ronya-Lee Anderson is a Caribbean-American folk-soul singer-songwriter from Washington, DC, and the creator of Ronya-Lee and the Light Factory. The project combines original music, dance, film, and fashion in layered performances shaped by collaboration with present-day artists, ancestors, and future audiences. A ukulele player with a sultry soprano, Anderson blends folk, soul, rock, pop, and psychedelic elements. Her broader creative and scholarly work engages Afro-diasporic aesthetics, Black feminist theory, critical race theory, and world-building. Her honors and commissions include the Pola Nirenska Award, Dance Place Artist Residency, the Dance Chronicle Award, the Sine Civic Life Faculty Fellowship, and the Carla Perlo Fund for Performance.

When: September 17, 2026

Venue: The Phillips Collection

Format: Live, seated, in-gallery soundscape performance

Lineup: Rita Burns and Ronya-Lee Anderson

Program: Songs selected by artists featured in *Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise: The Phillips Collection Juried Exhibition*, reinterpreted through a live soundscape

Tickets: Price not available