Tyrone Aiken, Chief Artistic Officer for Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey is a Choreographer, teacher, dancer, and arts administrator. He is a graduate of the Ailey School’s Certificate Program in 1983. Tyrone began his professional dance career with the Cleo Parker Dance Ensemble in 1983. Tyrone’s choreographic credits include “Summerland” commissioned by Dance Theater of Harlem’s Virginia Johnson. In Kansas City Tyrone has choreographed for The Lyric Opera, The Coterie Theater, The KC Symphony, Wylliams/Henry Dance Theatre, KC Ballet, the KC Rep, and the Nelson Atkins Museum. Tyrone created AileyCamp the Group in 1995, Setting the Stage in 1997 and a second AileyCamp serving Kansas in 2000. He successfully launched KCFAA’s move to the Jazz District in 2007 and lead KCFAA through a strategic plan with Michael Kaiser creating a new Festival and Symposium series. Tyrone received a Pinnacle Award for Arts excellence from the Johnson County Library, Neighborhood Hero Award from Bank of America, the Robert A. and Dr. Phyllis Bernstein Humanitarian Award from the Jewish Family and Children Services and traveled to the White House to accept the Coming Up Taller award presented to KCFAA for AileyCamp. Tyrone is a member of the African American Artist Collective of Kansas City Missouri, Kansas City Municipal Arts Commission, and received an MFA in dance from Hollins University in 2020. This is Tyrone’s 29^th year with KCFAA and 27^th year with Setting the Stage.

Kennedy Banks was born and raised in Chicago, IL, began her training at The Chicago High School for the Arts and received her BFA in Performance and Choreography at The University of Missouri-Kansas City (2021). During her time at UMKC she has worked with numerous world-renowned choreographers and instructors. Kennedy has choreographed multiple works, most notably “The Story of 400 Years” which premiered at the Chicago Hyde Park Jazz Festival. She has also collaborated with composers and instrumentalists, Angel Bat Dawid and Isaiah Collier. She is currently based in Kansas City, MO as a freelance choreographer/performer and full-time teaching artist with Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey. Kennedy is also a co-founder and member of The Chicago Black Artist Union. This is Kennedy’s sixth year participating in Setting The Stage.

Courtney Collado is a professional dancer, choreographer, Master Pilates instructor and educator from New York City. After training at the Colorado Ballet (Denver, CO), Boston Ballet, Walnut Hill School for the Arts (Natick, MA), Contra Costa Ballet (Walnut Creek, CA), Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble (Denver, CO) and Jacob’s Pillow (Lee, MA) she earned her BFA in Dance from New York University. She danced professionally in New York City for over a decade before relocating to Kansas City in 2014. In 2022, Courtney earned her MFA as part of a low-residency cohort at Hollins University, training in Roanoke, VA, New York City, Kansas City, MO, Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland, with celebrated artists and educators from around the globe.  Presently, she is on faculty at the Kansas City Ballet School, and is the Arts Programs Resource Leader at Paseo Academy of the Fine and Performing Arts (KCMO). Ms. Collado performed with KCFAA for the first time in early 2020 and is thrilled to take the stage with KCFAA for her fourth season with Setting the Stage.

Abram Hawkins was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. Abram began dancing at a young age doing hip-hop, tap, and acrobatics. He was introduced to modern dance in 2012 at KCFAA where he received his training and auditioned for the UMKC conservatory where he continued his studies in modern dance and ballet. After completing his first year at UMKC, he performed with the Lula Washington Dance studio in Las Angeles, California. During his sophomore year at UMKC, he performed Memoria with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Abram also received a full scholarship to attend the Ailey School in New York City for their summer intensive program. This is Abram’s sixth season with Setting the Stage.

AuJanai Hawkins is a 23 year old dancer born and raised in Kansas City, MO with a BFA in dance from Southeast Missouri State University. She started dancing over 15 years ago at Caruther’s Studio of Dance and continued her training at Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey from 2nd-12th grad. There she was trained in ballet, modern, and jazz. While at Southeast Missouri State University she furthered her training in ballet, modern, jazz, hip hop, improv, and choreography. She is now a dance teacher in the Kansas City area.

Jaeden Johnson is originally from Omaha, Nebraska and she trained at the Omaha Academy of Ballet for 13 years. She is currently a junior at the University of Missouri-Kansas City getting her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance with an equal emphasis in ballet and modern. She has trained with Kansas City Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, The Washington School of Ballet, Complexions Ballet, and Dance Theater of Harlem. She has also worked with guest artists, Nicole Clark Springer (Artistic Director of Deeply Rooted Dance Company), and William Whitner (previous Artistic Director of Kansas City Ballet).

Jontel McKay is originally from St. Matthews SC. He attended Highschool at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville South Carolina. He is currently a senior at University of Missouri Kansas-City getting his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Dance Performance . Jontel has been dancing for 4 years and so far he has worked with renowned guest artist including Ray Mercer (Residential Choreographer for Alvin Ailey – Fordham BFA program) , Jae Man Joo (Complexions Dance Company ), Nicole Clark Springer (Artistic Director of Deeply Rooted Dance Company), Alonzo King (Artistic Director of LINES Ballet) , Garth Fagan (Founder of Garth Fagan Dance Company)

Latra Ann Wilson is a Tyler Texas native and graduate from University of Missouri at Kansas City with a BFA in dance. Ms. Wilson has since danced with artist and institutions across the creative spectrum from Paul Taylor 2 (NY), Opera Theater St. Louis (MO) to The PublicTheatre annual Shakespeare In The Park (NY). Ms. Wilson also shares dance with the community at large as a teaching artist with both the Kansas City friends of Alvin Ailey (MO) and Ailey Arts in Education (NY). Ms. Wilson, in addition to singing, dancing, and teaching continues to hone her craft by assisting the brilliant and upcoming artist Stefanie Batten Bland (Eve’s Song) Josh Prince (Dance Lab New York) and Karen Sieber to name a few. Lastly Ms. Wilson is profoundly excited about TheDynamitExperience, a dance project she recently co-founded with her husband in 2018. Ms. Wilson is represented by LDCArtists.