Artist Biographies

Daniel Banks, Ph.D.

Daniel Banks, Ph.D.,is a theatre director, choreographer, educator, and dialogue facilitator. He has worked extensively in the U.S. and abroad, having directed at such notable venues as the National Theatre of Uganda (Kampala), the Belarussian National Drama Theatre (Minsk), The Market Theatre (Johannesburg, South Africa), the Hip Hop Theatre Festival (New York and Washington, D.C.), the Oval House (London), and served as choreographer/movement director for productions at New York Shakespeare Festival/Shakespeare in the Park, Singapore Repertory Theatre, La Monnaie/De Munt (Brussels), Landestheater (Saltzburg), Aaron Davis Hall (Harlem), and for Maurice Sendak/The Night Kitchen. Daniel has served on the faculties of the Department of Undergraduate Drama, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University and the MFA in Contemporary Performance at Naropa University and is the founder and director of the Hip Hop Theatre Initiative that uses Hip Hop Theatre as a tool for youth empowerment and leadership training. HHTI has worked on campuses and in communities across the U.S. and in Ghana, South Africa, Hungary, and Mexico. Currently, he is a Visiting Scholar in the Africana Studies Program/Department of Social and Critical Analysis at and is a long-time advisor in the Gallatin School for Individualized Studies, both at NYU.

Daniel is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Career Development Program for Directors. He sits on the steering committee of Theatre Without Borders, on the Editorial Board of No Passport Press, and on the Advisory Boards of the Hip Hop Association and the Downtown Urban Arts Festival. He has guest lectured extensively, at such institutions as: SUNY Stony Brook, University of California-Riverside, Stanford University, Brandeis University, University of Western Michigan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Central Florida, and University of Florida-Gainesville; and has been a Guest Artist at Williams College, City College of New York, Marymount Manhattan College, and the National Theatre Conservatory, Denver. He holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from NYU. Publications include "Unperforming 'Race': Strategies for Re-imagining Identity" in A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics (edited by Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz, Routledge, 2006) and "Youth Leading Youth: Hip Hop and Hiplife Theatre in Ghana and South Africa" in Theatre, Ritual and Building Peace: An Anthology for Artists, Peace Builders, and Policy Makers, a project of Coexistence International, Brandeis University, and Theatre Without Borders (Fall 2009). He is editor of the forthcoming critical anthology of Hip Hop Theatre plays Hip Hop Theatre: Theatre of Now for the University of Michigan Press (Spring 2009).

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Adam McKinney

Co-Director of DNAWORKS, Adam McKinney is a classically trained dancer and former member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet. In 2006, Adam served as a US Embassy Culture Connect Envoy to South Africa taught master dance classes in the U.S., Hungary, Indonesia, England, Ghana, South Africa, and Israel and has organized programs on social justice and the Arts with a long list of organizational partners, including Ghana's National School for the Deaf, Ghana State Mental Hospital, City Ballet Theater, and Agulhas Theatre Works, a mixed abilities contemporary dance company in South Africa. Adam's awards include a 2009 U.S. Embassy in Budapest grant, a 2009 Trust for Mutual Understanding grant, a 2008 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant and Gallatin (NYU) Jewish Arts grant for work with Ethiopian communities in Israel, a 2006 U.S. Embassy in Ghana grant, and the Bronfman Jewish Artist Fellowship for his genealogical dance and film work “HaMapah/המפה.” His choreographed works have been performed in Indonesia and South Africa, and together with Banks, will create a dance work for Beta Dance Troupe, an Ethiopian-Israeli dance company in Haifa, Israel. Named one of the most influential African-Americans in Milwaukee by St. Vincent DePaul in 2000, Adam currently leads youth programming for the Jewish Multiracial Network's retreats, sits on the board of United with In Motion, and is an 2010 M.A. Candidate at New York University.

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