Aku Kadogo is an international theatre director, choreographer,

educator and creative producer of cultural arts projects. This

multi-faceted artist directs highly energetic, imaginative

theatre works and has produced a number of collaborative

inter-disciplinary projects. Her eclectic career has spanned

across the United States, Australia, Europe and Asia.

She is the Chair of the Department of Theatre and Performance

at  Spelman College after having served as Distinguished

Visiting Professor in 2014.

Recently she served on the Music/Theatre Faculty at Yongin

University in Seoul, S. Korea where she lectured and directed

productions for the university and the wider professional

theatre community. Prior to that she was the Director of the

Black Theatre Program at Wayne State University in Detroit,

Michigan. Directing many works from the African American

canon, this was an exciting time for her to revisit works such as

Langston Hughes' Black Nativity, Ruby Dee's Zora is My Name

and August Wilson's Joe Turner has Come and Gone. She also

directed newer works such as Djanet Sears' The Adventures of a

Black Girl in Search of God; Will Power's Flow and In the Red

and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney. She has

collaborated on original works with writers Chris Tysh author of

Night Scales and Bill Harris' Booker T and Them for Art X

Detroit. She has been an Associate Choreographer on the Tony

Award winning show RENT, touring Australia, China and the

United States. As a performer she has worked in film, television

and stage making her career debut in the original Broadway

classic of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When

the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.

Having worked extensively as a Performer/Choreographer/

Director in Australia she has collaborated with artists such as

Elena Kats Chernin, Stephen Page, Robyn Archer, Juno Gemes,

Nigel Westlake, Roger Rynd and Colin Offord to name a few.

Aku devised and directed Ochre & Dust with Anangu

storytellers for the Perth and Adelaide International Theatre

festivals. She has an ongoing relationship with NAISDA Dance

College where she is a regular visiting Guest Artist.

She seved as an original member of the Programming

Committee for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit

(MOCAD) from 2006 - 2010.