Aku Kadogo

Aku Kadogo, born Karen Vest, is a choreographer, director, actress, and educator whose work spans Broadway, television, and academic institutions across multiple continents. The name Aku derives from Ghana's Ewe language and means "Wednesday born," while Kadogo comes from Swahili and translates to "small beautiful one."

Kadogo grew up in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Don and Hilda Vest, both activists and performers. Her mother brought her to demonstrations against the Vietnam War, and both parents regularly took her to cultural events throughout the city. She studied in the Performing Arts Department at Cass Technical High School from 1969 to 1972, though she found the program lacking and supplemented her training by enrolling at the now-defunct Concept East Theatre during her final year. It was there that she took her first acting role, performing Sonia Sanchez's Sister Sonji as her first professional appearance. She went on to attend New York University from 1972 to 1976.

During her final year at NYU, Kadogo met playwright Ntozake Shange and Paula Moss at Dianne McIntyre's Sounds in Motion Dance Studio. That connection led to her being cast as the Lady in Yellow in Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, which premiered on Broadway in 1976. Fellow original cast members included Lynn Whitfield and Alfre Woodard, and the production ran through 1978. From February to July of that year, the production toured Australia under the direction of Oz Scott, opening at Her Majesty's Theatre in Adelaide as part of the 10th Adelaide Festival of Arts before traveling to Melbourne, Sydney, Townsville, Cairns, and Brisbane. Following the tour's final performance, Kadogo chose to remain in Australia, where she would live for approximately twenty years.

Her Australian career encompassed performance, choreography, and artistic leadership. In 1988, she was part of a four-woman dance troupe called the African Dance Group, which performed AKWANSO (Fly South) at The Space Theatre in the Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. The production was directed by Robyn Archer and featured Pitjantjatjara dancer and actor Lillian Crombie, Ghanaian-Australian dancer, actor, and storyteller Dorinda Hafner, and Jamaican performer Jigzie Campbell. Each woman presented her own story of racial prejudice, followed by a group dance choreographed by Mary Barnett of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In the 1990s, Kadogo served as artistic director at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, where she worked with Aboriginal dancers and directed several significant productions. Among them was Ochre & Dust, commissioned by the Perth and Adelaide Festivals in 2000, with set design by Fiona Foley, which was also performed at the South Pacific Festival in Noumea, New Caledonia. During the same decade, she appeared as Snap Jordan in the Australian children's television series Lift Off.

Kadogo has also directed Salt City, a techno-choreopoem based on a work by Jessica Care Moore that examines Black culture in Detroit, including the African-American origins of techno music. The production was staged in both 2017 and 2019. Her work as a performer and educator has taken her to Australia, Senegal, Cuba, Brazil, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

Her academic career began in earnest when, during a 2005 visit to Detroit, she was offered the directorship of the Black Theatre Program at Wayne State University. She held that position from 2006 to 2011, after which she was appointed visiting professor at Yong In University in Seoul, South Korea. In 2014, Spelman College named her the William and Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Endowed Professor in the Arts, and as of 2019 she was serving as chair of the Department of Theatre and Performance there. Kadogo developed a teaching philosophy called rhythm science, which she created during her years in Australia. The approach identifies similarities among musical breaks across genres and was designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of rhythm and movement.