Arts Leadership Award Program

Representing Alameda County Supervisorial District Five —

Deborah Vaughan, of Oakland, is the award recipient for the Fifth District of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Deborah Vaughan is the co-founder and artistic director of Dimensions Dance Theater in Oakland. The company recently celebrated its 45th anniversary. Deborah has traveled, studied and explored traditional dance in West Africa, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Brazil, Congo and throughout the Caribbean. Deborah founded Rites of Passage and Dimensions Extensions in 1993, a comprehensive educational outreach program serving youth ages 8-18 years throughout the East Bay. Students learn traditional styles of movement and contemporary forms. Through years of collaborative effort, Dimensions is known for bringing many artists together in creative partnerships, linking choreography, storytelling with the visual arts, theater, and music. Deborah brings to the stage both conceptual material and a point of view, that takes the experience of Africans and African-Americans to a new frontier by blending contemporary influences with the deep and vital traditions of the past. Deborah Vaughan received The Oakland Indies Pillar Award in 2016 and The Della Davidson Prize in 2017.