Dr. Angela Fatou Gittens

A proud South Carolina Gullah Sea Islands descendant born in Baltimore, MD, Dr. Gittens formerly served as the Executive Artistic Director of Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy, a nationally-acclaimed Brooklyn-based institution that teaches youth to become agents of social justice in the performing and visual arts. 

Fatou holds a Ph.D. & M. Phil. in Performance Studies with a focus on dance history & sociolinguistics from New York University, she is fluent in six languages and is also a graduate of Oberlin College and Yale University. As a dancer, Dr. Gittens was an apprentice with Le Ballet National du Sénégal during much of her time as a student in Senegal. While in NYC, she spent many key years as a company member and performed internationally with Abdel Salaam’s Forces of Nature Dance Theater and with the Maimouna Keita West African Dance Company under the tutelage of Marie Basse Wiles. She has also performed the work of numerous choreographers including Ron K. Brown, Mikki Davis, Mouminatou Camara, and Alberto Gonzalez Tang (El Conjunto Nuevo Milenio Panamanian Performing Arts Company). 

As a singer, Dr. Gittens trained at Oberlin Conservatory and toured with the acclaimed Morgan State University Choir under the direction of the late Dr. Nathaniel Carter. She was also a Capitol Records recording artist in the group Earth Gyrlz and has had the honor of sharing the bill and doing sessions with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire, Faith Evans, Lauryn Hill, and Beyoncé’s technical producer Kevin Ryan.

As a scholar, Dr. Gittens has won awards for her writing & research on the Senegambia region, South Africa, France, and Mexico. Dr. Gittens was a lecturer at Barnard College at Columbia University and is especially known for creating and curating the Brooklyn Arts Council's Black Brooklyn Renaissance 2010, a year-long series of artist exhibitions, symposia, and performances funded by the Met Life Foundation. 

Dr. Gittens resides with her husband and two sons in Brooklyn, NY.