Rosie Lee Hooks PDF Stampa E-mail
Rosie Lee Hooks
ROSIE LEE HOOKS

DIRECTOR OF WATTS TOWERS
ARTS CENTER & CHARLES MINGUS
YOUTH ARTS CENTER
CITY OF LOS ANGELES

Rosie Lee Hooks is the director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, the Tour Program for Watts Towers and the Chalres Mingus Youth Arts Center. She served as Acting Director here in 1993. Before taking her permanent position, Hooks was the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Director of Festivals and Gallery Theatre. There, in addition to conceptualizing and producing almost 300 multicultural, multidisciplined and culturally specific festivals, special events and theatre programs, and utilizing her background in early childhood education, she developed the now 17-year-old Jazz Mentorship Program, which exposes yong people to America’s indigenous art form. An accomplished actress and singer for more than 30 years, Hooks began her career in theatre at the D.C. Black Repertory Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., where she was a founding member, resident actor and training coordinator for five years.
She is a former member of “Sweet Honey in The Rock” and founding member of TBET (The Black Ensemble Theatre) at LATC (Los Angeles Theatre Center). Her acting credits include touring the US and Europe with the Mark Taper Forum. Hooks continues to act in film, television and on stage and is the recipient of the prestigious NAACP “Image Award” as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the original stage production of 227. While working for the Smithsonian Institution, she produced the African Diaspora Program of the Festival of American Folklife, presenting folk and traditional artists and cultural materials, as well as performers, visual artists and crafts from the US, Caribbean, Latin America, South America and Africa. As Diplomatic Liaison, she was responsabile for establishing and maintaining relationships between the Smithsonian and Embassy Ambassadors for Liberia, Nigeria, Zaire, Senegal, Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Surinam, Guyana and Brazil. As Director of Field Research, she traveled throughout the United States, and on “Official Passport” delivering the government-to-government invitations from the United States to the Ministers of Culture in Jamaica, Trinidad an Tobago, Haiti, Guyana, Surinam, Brazil, Ghana, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Senegal. Some of her first published photographs can be seen in the book, “Black People and Their Culture”, essays that document the African Diaspora Program at the Smithsonian. Hooks is also a film documentarian, having produced more than 16 films documenting the culture of various ethnic communities in Southern California. Hooks is proud of her accomplishments as a 1st degree Black Belt in Tang Soo Do Karate. Her work has been honored with a number of Awards, including: the Community Service Award from the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture, the Rainbow Award from the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival, the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center Community Service Award and another Community Service Award from the Charles Drew School of Medicine and Science.