Freedom Moves | Workshop Facilitator
Dr. Amma Y. Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin – “Dr. Amma” – is a scholartist who bridges the worlds of academia and entertainment. Named a TED Fellow for her innovative approach in “performing the archive,” she transforms historical material into compelling narratives for stage and screen.
Dr. Amma is the driving force behind AT BUFFALO, a new musical in development about the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Co-created with a renowned national team, AT BUFFALO brings to life the untold stories of forgotten African and African-American performances at the world’s fair, including the groundbreaking American Negro Exhibit co-curated by W.E.B. Du Bois. This ambitious project and its research have garnered national acclaim, including a TED Talk with over 2 million views and recognition from institutions like the Ford Foundation, Map Fund, Goodspeed Musicals Johnny Mercer Writers Grove Residency, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, etc.
In the television industry, Dr. Amma has held positions at A&E® Networks/The History Channel and served as Vice President of Creative Affairs at JusticeRx, a production company with an overall development deal at Warner Bros. Television Group. Her educational work for the History Channel’s Peabody award-winning documentary Save Our History: Voices of Civil Rights received a Beacon Award, cable television’s highest honor for public affairs.
Dr. Amma is also a co-recipient of a 2020 Honorable Mention for the National Council on Public History’s Outstanding Public History Project Award for her co-direction of [the Georgia Incarceration Performance Project]. This first-of-its-kind-collaboration explored the history of the state of Georgia’s use of incarcerated labor through collaborative artistic endeavors with faculty, students, and archivists at Spelman College, Morehouse College, and the University of Georgia, in partnership with industry artists and incarcerated university students enrolled in Common Good Atlanta.
Born to Ghanaian immigrants in Tuskegee, AL and raised in Kansas, Dr. Amma’s family’s journey is forever etched in the Ellis Island Museum archives. The History Channel has recognized her as one of 37 “extraordinary immigrants/children of immigrants” alongside luminaries like Ang Lee and Gloria Estefan.
Dr. Amma has served on America250’s History Education Advisory Council, contributing to the national commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States. A graduate of Harvard University and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Dr. Amma’s career is dedicated to helping audiences confront the truth of the past, especially the pasts that haunt us.