Blog

Awam Amkpa: Biography, Age, Career, Family And Movies

Awam Amkpa is a Nigerian actor, playwright, and professor of dramatic arts.

Background

Currently a professor of Drama and Cultural Theory at the departments of Drama, Tisch School of the Arts and Social and Cultural Analysis, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at New York University. He received his B.A. in Dramatic Arts from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria where he studied under the tutelage of Wole Soyinka, his M.A. in Drama from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, and his Ph.D. from University of Bristol, Bristol, England.

Career

Dr. Amkpa is currently a professor of Drama at New York University and in Social and Cultural Analysis/Africana studies at New York University. He has also taught at Mount Holyoke College. He is a theatre scholar and practitioner-director, playwright and actor, film maker and curator of visual and performing arts.

Books

• Theatre and Postcolonial Desires’. New York: Routledge, 2003.

ReSignifications: European Blackamoors, Africana Readings. Edited catalogue published by Postcart, Rome, Italy. 2016 Africa: See You, See Me. Edited catalogue, Africa.Cont, Lisboa. 2013

Filmography

• Truly, Madly, Deeply, 1991 – a ghost

Director/Editor, ‘Accra: A Pan-African Rupture’ 75 mins

Director/Editor, ‘A Very Very Short Story of Nollywood’ 15 mins Produced by Manthia Diawara. 2008

Director, ‘Women of Agbogloshi’ 12 mins- short documentary on Muslim women in Accra. 2007

Director, ‘Voices Against Aids’ 5 mins ‘Hip-Life’ music video shot and broadcast in Ghana for the West African Aids Federation. 2007

Assistant Director, Conakry Kas, directed by Manthia Diawara

2006

Assistant Director, Bamako Sigi-Kan, directed by Manthia Diawara. 2005

Director, Editor, Wazobia! Feature film written and produced by Tess Onwueme. 2005

Curatorial Practices

‘Africa: Significaciones’ at Centro Provincial de Artes Plasticas y Diseño, Havana, Cuba. 2017 ‘ReSignifications: European Blackamoors, Africana Readings.’ at Museo Bardini, Villa La Pietra and Galleria Biagiotti, Florence, Italy. 2015 ‘Africa: See You, See Me’ in Beijing and Macau China; Rome and Florence, Italy, Dakar, Senegal and Lagos, Nigeria. 2011-2013 Annual Highlife Music Festival, Accra, Ghana. 2006-2009 Kofi Ghanaba Audi-Visual Archives, Medie-Accra, Ghana 2007-2010