Education

B.A., Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University

Biography

Aku Kadogo is an international theater director, choreographer, performer, educator and cultural arts curator. Kadogo has directed and created theater works in Australia, Korea, Europe and the United States. This multi-faceted artist directs highly energetic, imaginative, original theater works. For the Adelaide and Perth International festivals she devised and directed "Ochre & Dust" (2000) working with indigenous women of the Central Australian desert. For the Art & About Festival in Sydney, Australia she devised and collaborated with Detroit visual artist Tyree Guyton on "Singing for that Country" (2004).

She was the director of the Black Theater Program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, where she conducted arts residencies, directed works by Ruby Dee, Langston Hughes, August Wilson, Will Power, Chris Tysh and Djanet Sears and developed a Performance Studies course. 

Kadogo was a guest faculty member on the musical theater faculty at Yongin University in Yongin, South Korea (2011-2013). There she devised original works in Korean and directed large-scale musicals. She also worked with professional companies LATT Children’s Theatre, SADARI and REM. 

In 2014, she was Spelman College Distinguished Visiting Professor and now serves on faculty.  Producing several events, she premiered a work in progress of Jessica Care Moore’s Afrofuturistic Choreopoem: "Salt City," presented Heidelberg TV by Tyree Guyton and was in conversation with performance artist/artistic director Marc “Bamuthi” Joseph.

She has been an associate choreographer on RENT touring Australia, China and the United States. As a performer, Kadogo has worked in film, television and stage, making her career debut in the original Broadway production of "for colored girls who considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf."

Her interdisciplinary practice is ongoing. Kadogo was one of eleven artists chosen for the first Taubman Institute Arts & Science exhibition (2014) at MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit). She is contributing to an anthology on Afro-Centric Directors to be published on Routledge (2016). Kadogo holds a Bachelor of Arts from Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University.

Courses Taught

Collaborative Arts Seminar
Performance Studies
Urban Anthropological Approach to Performance Studies

Research Interests

Theater Directing, Performance, Arts and Culture in the Pacific Region

Publications

Connecting the Dots: http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/connecting-dots

Night Scales by Chris Tysh: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9845988-night-scales