Alicia Adams

Alicia B. Adams for three decades served as the Vice President of International Programming and Dance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  She joined the Kennedy Center in 1992, first serving as Special Assistant to the Chairman, James Wolfensohn.  At that time, she worked with the Chairman to augment, articulate, coordinate and oversee implementation of the Center’s programs and policies.  Adams now curates major international festivals as well as contemporary theater and dance programs.  Her professional career has also serving as Chair of board of Trustees of  the International Society of the Performing Arts (ISPA) and as Co-Vice President of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals(APAP).

For two decades, Adams’ role at the Center has been producing and presenting work from the national and international arenas.  Most recently she launched  EARTH  to SPACE: Arts Breaking the Sky (2025), REACH TO FOREST (2024) and RIVERRUN (2023). She also curated and produced other major festivals as  ARTES DE CUBA: From the Island to the World, an unprecedented festival that brought together 400 Cuban and Cuban American artists.  Ireland 100 (2016), celebrating the Centennial of the Easter Rising, the Center’s IBERIAN SUITE: global arts remix (2015), WORLD STAGES: International Theater Festival 2014, as well as the Nordic Cool 2013, maximumINDIA (2011) and ARABESQUE: Arts of the Arab World (2009) festivals, celebration of the arts and culture of the Nordic region, India and the Arab world respectively. She also planned and programmed China: The Art of a Nation (2011), ON THE FRINGE: Eye on Edinburgh (2010), JAPAN! culture + hyperculture (2008) and the month-long Festival of China (2005), the largest celebration Chinese arts and culture in American history.  She curated the Center’s four-year initiative on Africa, African Odyssey (1997-2000) and the Latin American festival AmericArtes (2001-2004).  In addition to major international festivals, Adams also curates the Center’s Contemporary Dance. Over the past years she has produced international theater series, including the World Stages series Spotlight on Directors and Celebrating Bergman at 100  featuring directors Liv Ullmann and Ivo van Hove.   

She has worked in the field of arts management in New York City for institutions including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Belafonte Enterprises, Inc., City Center Theater, Harlem School of the Arts and International Production Associates.

She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts,  Founding Council of the Caine Prize for African Writing( UK), Africa 95 Trustee (UK), Former Advisory Board member for the All Roads Project of National Geographic, Planning Committee for ISPA Congress, ISPA Trustee/ Congress Chair(2012) Trustee/ Advisory Conference Committee for Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), and six years on the National Dance Panel of the New England Foundation on the Arts.  In 2011 she received the APAP Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the field of presenting. Adams is a member of the Advisory Council for Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance and Circle World Arts.  She is also an elected member of the Cosmos Club. In 2013, Adams was awarded the Insignia of Member First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by the Swedish government.  In 2014 Adams was awarded   Insignia of Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the Finnish government.

Adams has a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University.  She holds a certificate in arts administration from Harvard University’s School of Business Administration.

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POSITION: Formerly Vice President, International Programming and Dance – The John F. Kennedy Center