Photo by Terrence Jennings (Urban Eye Photo)

 

Lafotographeuse (née Amanda Adams-Louis) she/her is a photographer, educator, cultural producer and street dance scholar based in Brooklyn. Her creative practice exists at the nexus of art, education and archive.

 

Amanda is a 3rd Culture Kid. She was born in the U.S. and grew up in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. Her oeuvre is informed by her experiences living, learning and creating between multiple continents and cultures during her formative years. She was first exposed to black dance traditions in Dakar; house music in Budapest, and nightlife in Milan. Amanda decided to pursue a career in photography while climbing the stairs in the Old Town Bridge Tower in Prague during a travel study program organized by her high school. In 2017, she designed & founded CUE Teen Collective, an experiential, field trip program for NYC teen artists. Teen Collective’s fall semester program schedule is inspired by the travel study program she participated in during high school that enabled her to spend ten days making images in Czech Republic.

Lafotographeuse’s images celebrate dance forms derived from movement vocabularies, music and performance traditions created by Black, LGBTQIA, and Latinx communities in New York City. She chronicles ephemeral moments of pleasure, play, performance, and parties in motion. She is the house photographer for Afrokinetic Party, DICE Battle, Light Feet Awards and DJ Spinna/Keistar Productions.

Amanda designs, teaches and coordinates art education workshops/programs for young people ages 10-25. She develops and delivers professional development seminars for classroom teachers, teaching artists and art education administrations. Her public tours illuminate the history of unrecognized people, places, and culture shifts in downtown Manhattan. She mentors young creatives through the processes applying to art school & establishing themselves in the workforce. As a strategic planning consultant, Amanda advises artists, administrators, educators and executives who are shifting between careers, changing industries and/or engaging new marketplaces.

In 2019, Lafotographeuse co-founded Kut The Rug Institute (KTRi.) KTRi is a cultural think & do tank that advances the conversation and information available about Street & Club Dance forms indigenous to New York City. KTRi collaborates with cultural institutions and artists to produce, curate and organize exhibitions, workshops and panels that highlight the values, ideas, aesthetics, movement foundations, histories, legacies, sites that animate NYC Street & Club Dance communities.

Amanda holds a BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute. She is an high school alumna of TASIS Switzerland and studio art alumna of the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. She serves on CUE Art Foundation’s board of directors; is a Cultural Institution Teen Programs Group (CITPG) administrator, and a veteran member of NYC Arts in Education Roundtable’s Teaching Artist Affairs Committee.

Lafotographeuse has worked with:

  • A Lady in the House Dance Company | Afrokinetic | Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater | America Reads Counts | Arteasan | Arts Brookfield | Brooklyn Museum | Budweiser | Casita Maria Center for Art Education | Chaim and Renee Gross Foundation | Creative Art Works | Creative Connections | CUE Art Foundation | CCCADI | Dance Delight Magazine | Dancing in the Streets | DNAWorks | DICE Battle | Ephrat Asherie Dance Company | Full Circle Productions | Giant Step | Hostos College Center for Arts & Culture | Jamel Shabazz Arts Inc. | Keistar Productions | Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival | LayeRhythm | Levi’s | Lincoln Center | LiteFeet Awards | Mop Top Music | National Dance Week | Nemal Productions | New York University | NYC Arts in Education Roundtable | Open To All Entertainment | Olu & Co. | Passion Fruit Dance Company | Pepsi | Pratt Institute | The Contemporaries | Works & Process | UnKut Productions | Urban World Film Festival | YRB Magazine

  • Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art | Blackstar Film Festival | Brooklyn Academy of Music | Brooklyn Museum | Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI) | Deep Side Center Paris | Front Street Gallery, | Harriet’s Alter Ego Gallery | Museum of Contemporary Diasporan Art (MOCADA) | National Black Theater | New York University: Department of Performance Studies | Open Ateliers Zo- Amsterdam | Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture | Sounds of Brazil (SOB’S) | Union Theological Seminary | Whitney ISP Project Space

  • Grades 6-12 & Young Adults 18-24

    Brooklyn Children’s Museum | Brooklyn Arts Council | Bronx Community College | Casita Maria Center for Art Education | Center for Art Education | Creative Artworks | Creative Connections | Eagle Academy for Young Men (Bronx) | Educational Video Center | Marquis Studios | Medgar Evers College: Center for Black Literature | The MET Museum | Museum of Art & Design | NYC Department of Transportation | United Photo Industries | Urban Arts Partnership | Urban Assembly School of Music and Art | Queens Arts Council | York College | YWCA

  • Professional Development for K-12 Educators

    BRIC Arts Media | Hook Arts Media | NYC Arts in Education Roundtable | Urban Arts Partnership | Teaching Artist Guild | Village Society for Historic Preservation

    Strategic Planning

    Brown Girls Burlesque | Club Culture Foundation | Dancing In the Streets | Love Underground NYC

  • Arts Connection | Barefeet with Mickela Mallozzi | Black Portraitures Conference | Club Culture Foundation| CUE Art Foundation | Express Newark | Guggenheim Museum | International Breaking Event (IBE)/ 45 Live | It’s Showtime NYC | Ladies of Hip Hop x Snipes Studio | Materials for the Arts | MET Museum | |NY Arts in Education Roundtable | New York Hall of Science | New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (Music Division) | Show & Prove: Hip-Hop Studies Conference | Works & Process