Ronald K. Brown

Ronald K. Brown, raised in Brooklyn, NY, is the recent recipient of the Martha Hill Mid-Career Achievement Award (2024), American Dance Guild Lifetime Achievement Award (2024), and a Dance Teacher Award of Distinction (2024). Other awards include the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award (2020), as well as a Dance Magazine Award (2018) and Samuel H. Scripps/ADF Award (2018). Brown has also received an AUDELCO Award for his choreography in Regina Taylor’s award-winning play Crowns, two Black Theater Alliance Awards, and a Fred & Adele Astaire Award for Outstanding Choreography in the Tony Award-winning Broadway and national touring production of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, adapted by Suzan Lori Parks. 

Brown has set works on Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Jeune Ballet d’Afrique Noire, Ko-Thi Dance Company, Philadanco, Muntu Dance Theater of Chicago, Ballet Hispánico, TU Dance, and Malpaso Dance Company. 

He has collaborated with such artists as composer/designer Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya, the late writer Craig G. Harris, director Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actors Theater, choreographers Patricia Hoffbauer and Rokiya Kone, and composers Jason Moran, Arturo O’Farrill, Meshell Ndegeocello, Robert Een, Oliver Lake, Bernadette Speech, David Simons, and Don Meissner. He has performed with Mary Anthony Dance Theater, Jennifer Muller/The Works, as well as other choreographers and artists. 

Brown was named Def Dance Jam Workshop 2000 Mentor of the Year and has received the Doris Duke Artist Award, NYC City Center Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Choreographers Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, United States Artists Fellowship, a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award, and The Ailey Apex Award. 

Ronald K. Brown is Co-Artistic Director of The Billie Holiday Theatre’s Youth Arts Academy, and a member of Stage Directors & Choreographers Society.