Born Karen Vest, Aku Kadogo grew up in Detroit, Michigan.[1]
Her parents, Don and Hilda Vest, were activists and performers.[1] As a young girl, Kadogo's mother encouraged her participation in demonstrations against the Vietnam War,[2] and both parents often took her to cultural events throughout the city.[1]
She attended Cass Technical High School, specializing in their Performing Arts Department from 1969 to 1972. Unimpressed with her high school department, she enrolled in a program at the defunct Concept East Theatre during her last year of high school. It was there that she got her first acting role. Her first professional performance was of Sonia Sanchez's "Sister Sonji".[2]
Kadogo attended New York University (NYU) from 1972 to 1976 upon graduating from high school.[2]
The name "Aku," meaning "Wednesday born" originates from Ghana's Ewe language. Her last name, "Kadogo" is derived from Swahili. It means "small beautiful one."[3]
Career
Kadogo has educated and performed in Australia, Senegal, Cuba, Brazil, and Hong Kong, and South Korea.[4]
In 1988, Kadogo was one of a four-woman dance troupe who called themselves the African Dance Group and performed a show directed by Robyn Archer at The Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre for the Adelaide Festival of Arts, entitled AKWANSO (Fly South). The others in the group were Pitjantjatjara dancer/actor Lillian Crombie, Ghanaian-Australian dancer/actor/storyteller Dorinda Hafner, and Jamaican Jigzie Campbell. Each woman tells her own story of racial prejudice, which is followed by a dance by all four women, choreographed by Mary Barnett of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.[8]
In Australia, Kadogo took the role of artistic director at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney in the 1990s, worked with Aboriginal dancers, and directed a number of significant works.[9] These included Ochre & Dust (2000), commissioned by the Perth and Adelaide Festivals, with set design by Fiona Foley,[10] which was also performed at South Pacific Festival in Noumea, New Caledonia.[9]
Kadogo directed a production of techno-choreopoemSalt City, based on the choreopoem by Jessica Care Moore, which "celebrates Black culture in Detroit: the African-American presence in the city [and] techno-music that was pioneered by African-American men straight out of the Detroit Metropolitan Area".[11][12] It was staged in 2017 and 2019.[13][14]
Television
Kadogo played Snap Jordan in the 1990s Australian children's television series Lift Off.[4]
Teaching
In a 2005 visit back home, Kadogo was offered the position of director for the Black Theatre Program at Wayne State University.[2] She served in that capacity from 2006 to 2011. After leaving Wayne State, she was appointed as visiting professor at Yong In University in Seoul, South Korea.
In 2014, Kadogo was named Spelman College William and Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Endowed Professor in the Arts. As of 2019[update] was serving as the chair for the Department of Theatre and Performance at Spelman College.[4]
Kadogo has developed a teaching philosophy called "rhythm science." Created during her time in Australia, it argues the similarity of musical breaks across all musical genres. She created the technique to help her students better understand rhythm and movement.[3]
References
^ abcGabriel, Larry. "Dancing back". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
^ abcdefKadogo, Aku (Summer 2007). "The Circle Unbroken: A Detroit Artist Returns". Black Masks. 18 (2): 7, 8, 16 – via ProQuest.
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