Africa Development Conference 2025

Kaneza Schaal is a Rwandan American artist. Her work has shown in divergent contexts, from NYC galleries to courtyards in Vietnam, to East African amphitheaters, to European opera houses, to USA public housing, to rural auditoriums in the UAE. She seeks expansive audiences by creating art that speaks many formal, cultural, historical, aesthetic, and experiential languages. Schaal received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award in Theatre, United States Artists Fellowship, SOROS Art Migration and Public Space Fellowship, Ford Foundation Art For Justice Bearing Witness Award, and she directed the 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar. Schaal is an Arts-in-Education advocate, most recently she taught a course on theater and social practice at Harvard University and served as the Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University. In her commitment to artist-centered institutions, Schaal served on the board of PS122/PSNY; Leadership Council for Creatives Rebuilt New York, a 125 million initiative for artists employment and guaranteed income; Artistic Leadership Committee for New Victory Theater; and she is currently a co-Director of Under The Radar Festival, NYC’s international theater festival.