Alicia Adams

For over two decades, Alicia Adams has been presenting work from national and international arenas at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As vice president of international programming and dance, she produces the distinguished international theater series World Stages each year. Since 1997, Adams has curated and produced major international festivals including, most recently, Artes de Cuba, an unprecedented festival in 2018 that brought together 400 Cuban and Cuban American artists. She also curates the Kennedy Center's contemporary dance programming and annual Lunar New Year Celebration. Adams has served on numerous boards and planning committees including the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, the Caine Prize for African Writing (UK), Africa 95 (UK), the All Roads Project of National Geographic, the International Society of Performing Arts, and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP), among others. In 2011 she received the APAP Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the field of presenting. In 2013, Adams was awarded the Insignia of Member First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by the Swedish government and in 2014, the Insignia of Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland by the Finnish government. She served as a Center panelist for Performance in 2020.