Biography
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When I was a very young student at Newtown Girls’ R.C. School in Port of Spain, Trinidad, I had the great fortune to study with Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Shephard, and Miss O’Brien. These women featured in my seventh book, In the Public Eye (2009) and continue to be the beacons of light on my educational path I am now a Professor of Adolescent/Adult Literacy at Kent State University in the School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum Studies. My major research interests include women and literacy, drama in education, and video technology in qualitative research instruction. My published research includes documentation of the experiences of Black women involved in education from adult basic literacy to higher education. The American Educational Research Association Narrative and Research SIG awarded my book, Ph.D. Stories: Conversations with My Sisters, the Outstanding Book Award for 2009. My formal performance career did not stop when I left The Juilliard School in 1987. Rather, I took a long time to formulate a one woman show called “Between Me and the Lord,” which I performed in Atlanta, Trinidad, and Cambridge in 2000. The second installation of the play was presented at Kent State University in March, 2009. “Between Me and The Lord 2” is an expanded document that represents five chapters of my life. In April 2010, I was invited by Georgia State University to present at the Research Wednesday Speaker Series. The Speaker Series is designed to (1) provide a platform for explorations of new ways of conducting and disseminating educational research, (2) facilitate discussion around new methods of mentoring doctoral students in an effort to enhance their development as researchers, and (3) give participants an opportunity to hear innovative and thought provoking speakers who represent cutting edge research at the state and national levels.
An Evening with Storytelling with a Conscience featuring Joanne Kilgour Dowdy
From the Trinidad Guardian Newspaper -2011
by Roslyn Carrington
photo: Andre Alexander
Celebrated Trinidad-born arts practitioner and educator Dr Joanne Kilgour Dowdy has written nine books, all of which helped raise the consciousness of her people. Dowdy’s books often explore women’s issues, empowerment, and issues concerning Caribbean and pan-African people. Her newest—Artful Stories: The Teacher, the Student and the Muse—however, tells the story of four arts practitioners from Trinidad and Tobago—a lighting designer, a dancer, a jazz musician and a choreographer—who have made a name for themselves internationally. The book is an exploration of the role of the artist as teacher and relationship that evolves between the teacher and the student in the creation of new work, whether it is lighting design, drama, dance, or music. Kilgour-Dowdy left Trinidad in the 80s to study drama at the Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance, and Drama with the support of Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and then moved on to the Julliard School in New York. She continued her formal performance career which is carefully and poignantly documented in her photo autobiography In the Public Eye, which she also launched in Trinidad in 2010.
Her life in the public eye
Wayne Bowman wayne.bowman@trinidadexpress.com
Monday, April 12th 2010
Do you remember the time when there were two channels to choose from on local television? One station affectionately called TTT provided two channels, 2 for the east and 13 for the west and Tobago. You either watched what was on it or found something else to do because there was no cable and only a handful of people owned satellite dishes.
In the TV mix that offered much more foreign material than local there were some homegrown productions that secured airplay and enjoyed popularity. One of these was a 13-part series entitled Who the C.A.P. Fits featuring a young woman named Joanne Kilgour.Publications
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In the Public Eye
Joanne Kilgour Dowdy's photo autobiography takes us through a rich and moving forty year personal life journey. We are made privy to her inner most thoughts growing up as a privileged child in Trinidad, her then meteoric rise to fame as a young thespian in her homeland, and her later struggle with her identity as a black immigrant in the United States.
In each photograph of Joanne from childhood through adulthood we see the challenging eyes of an individual who is wise beyond her years, determined and frankly rebellious.
This book affords the reader an opportunity to look through the lens that reveals the soul of a teacher, and whose seemingly disparate experiences, form the foundation for everything she does. [It is] an insightful portrait of what it means to be a woman of colour in today's society.
Professor D. Prioleau
SUNY: Brockport
