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MKArts by MK Abadoo (they/she), and collaborators, exists at the crux of dance theater and anti-racist cultural organizing. Combining funk/family kitchen dances, classical American modern and postmodern dance vocabularies, neo-traditional Ghanaian movement, and a community-centered creative practice, our work draws from the “tradition of black literature and art that unites past and present in unsparing dialog.”

Considered a “breakout star” by Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and a Clyde Fitch “changing-making artist to track,” MK’s work has been commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the University of Richmond, and the Dance Exchange. As a 2016-2017 U.S. Fulbright Fellow, they worked closely with the Noyam African Dance Institute and the National Dance Company of Ghana. In 2017 they received a 40 Under 40 award from Prince George’s County Social Innovation Fund for their leadership and achievement in the arts. In 2020, she was awarded by Richmond, VA Dance Awards for her collaborative choreography of a commemorative justice site-specific work performed at one of the United States oldest African burial grounds.

MK’s dance and cultural organizing moves within and alongside the legacies of companies and choreographers she performed with for more than a decade including, Gesel Mason, Liz Lerman, Urban Bush Women, and the Dance Exchange. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), and chairs the Racial Equity, Arts, and Culture Core of VCU’s ICubed, the Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry & Innovation. As an educator, they are sought out for their keen ability to facilitate group learning as unique communities of shared wisdom, and embodied knowledge. She’s worked with students as a guest artist at Towson University, Texas A&M, New York University, the University of Richmond, the University of Maryland, Brown University, James Madison University, East Carolina University, Dickinson College and the University of Virginia. She earned her BFA in dance education with a concentration in modern dance and a minor in strategic advertising from the University of the Arts. They also minored in African studies as an international student at the University of Ghana,and hold an MFA in dance from the University of Maryland.