Akua Kouyate

AKUA FEMI KOUYATE co-founded Memory of African Culture (MAC) Inc. with her late husband, Diali Djimo Kouyate in 1983. As the current director of MAC, Inc. Akua Kouyate manages MAC performance programs including The Kouyate Family and the Manding Griot Ensemble. She also produces special project initiatives as the songbook/CD compilation "Donkilo: Songs of Manding Traditions," and other African performing arts educational resource materials and guides for K-12 teachers. Kouyate presents at seminars and conferences, and conducts lectures, workshops, residencies, teaching artist trainings and international cultural education excursions for the study of African and African Diaspora arts expressions.

In 2001 Akua Kouyate joined the Education department of Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts where she continues to serve as the Associate Director of Local Programs for the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts. In this capacity she directs the Institute's programs in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. She is the project director for the Wolf Trap Early Childhood STEM Learning Through the Arts 4-year initiative funded through a $1.15 million grant under the U.S. Department of Education Arts In Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant Program.

Akua Kouyate is an Adjunct Faculty Member of the Dance Major Program in the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University in Washington, DC where she teaches Dance History, Dance Composition, Methods of Teaching and other dance courses at the only HBCU that offers an BFA degree in Dance. In the past Kouyate has worked with the National Endowment for the Arts, United Cerebral Palsy/UCP, DC Public Schools, Young Audiences, DC Chapter and the Library of Congress.

Akua Femi Kouyate holds a Master of Arts Degree in Art Management and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Performing Arts: Dance from The American University, and is a recipient of a Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Award. She has conducted postgraduate and independent research in African Cultural Studies at Howard University and in the countries of Mali, Senegal and the Gambia. She has served as a review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD) and has presented at national and international conferences on African cultural art traditions and arts education. She is a member of the Ankobea Society, a Pan- Afrikan family organization.