Kellee Edusei

Kellee Edusei (she/her) became the Executive Director of Dance/USA in 2021. She joined Dance/USA in the fall of 2008 as the organization’s Office Manager and Board Liaison and was promoted to Director of Member Services in the spring of 2009, maintaining her work as Board Liaison until 2019.

During her time at Dance/USA, Edusei designed and implemented the Membership Fellowship, an opportunity for an early career arts administrator an opportunity to hone their skills; the “Special Membership Package,” a recruitment campaign that surpassed goal and engaged the entire Dance/USA Board and team in the process; and a new revenue stream by maximizing Dance/USA’s monthly Bulletin. She was part of the initial design of Dance/USA’s Dance Business Bootcamp, a program for dance artists working with budgets of $200,000 and below. Edusei also developed a website portal for Dance/USA’s Board of Trustees so they could more easily connect with one another and access Board materials on-demand. In addition, she standardized the on-boarding process for new Trustees.

She has served as a grants panelist for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD), Alternate Roots (GA), and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (IL).

Edusei currently serves on the Advisory Council for Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) (national). She recently rotated off the See Chicago Dance’s (IL) Board of Directors where she was Chair of its Governance Committee, and is also a former member of Dance Exchange’s (MD) Board of Directors. Additionally, Edusei has been a member of Jacob’s Pillow (MA), Bates Dance Festival (ME), and Movement Research’s (NY) dance communities.

As a double-major graduate from The College of Wooster (OH) with degrees in Dance and Black Studies, Edusei studied in New York City and Yaoundé, Cameroon. Though worlds apart, she immersed herself in both city’s eclectic dance and arts communities. As a result of these experiences, she devised an evening length performance exclusively of her work as part of her Independent Study thesis, titled Singularly Women/Collectively Woman. The piece focused on the mask dances of the African ethnic groups the Yoruba, Voltaic, and Mende.

She is an alumna of artEquity’s 2020 BIPOC Leadership Circle and of American Express’ 2014 Leadership Academy. She is a current participant of the New Strategies Forum at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, supported by American Express.

Edusei resides in Chicago, IL with her husband and their children on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Kickapoo.