About
Jake Hooker (he/they) heads the Drama program at the Residential College. He is a theatremaker, educator, scholar, and Co-Founding Director of A Host of People, a Detroit-based transdisciplinary devised theater company. They hold a BFA in Theatre/Original Works from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, an MA in Theatre & The World (intercultural praxis) from the Centre for Performance Research at the University of Wales, and a PhD in Theatre and Performance from the City University of New York. With A Host of People, he has co-created and co-produced nine evening-length works, for which he has co-directed, performed, generated text (especially poems), and designed projections and other multimedia elements. In addition, the company works with/in communities, locally and nationally, and he has co-designed a wide range of projects with a variety of partners. He is a Kresge Artist Fellow, in recognition of his work with the company. Prior to moving to Detroit, Hooker created many theatrical works in New York City, where he lived from 2001-2012. In New York, their theatre and performance work has been seen at HERE, Dixon Place, The Chocolate Factory, La Mama, The Bushwick Starr, The Ohio Theater, and many other venues. He was the Company Manager and Assistant Director for Big Dance Theatre, as the recipient of a 2005-2007 TCG New Generations Grant. They are also a proud Associate Artist with Target Margin Theater. As an artist-scholar, his areas of creative research lay in hybridity and mixing, as in the intersections of practice and research, theatre and urban studies, the global and the local, and artistic and civic processes. Prior to joining the RC, they taught in the Theatre & Drama department at the University of Michigan School of Theater, Music and Dance (SMTD).
