The Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) is proud to announce the names of six outstanding individuals who will receive APAP Honors Awards in New York on Monday, January 12, 2026.
For more than six decades, the coveted APAP Awards have celebrated and recognized trailblazers and visionaries of the performing arts field. The APAP Honors will be presented as part of a breakfast awards ceremony at the New York Hilton Midtown from 9:30 a.m.- 11:30 a.m. during the annual APAP|NYC conference that runs from January 9-13, 2026. Tickets are currently available to conference registrants, and tickets will go on sale to the public in mid-December.
APAP members were invited to nominate artists, agents, managers, presenters, producers, organizations, supporters, and other arts professionals whose hard work, dedication and vision have contributed to the strength, impact, and resilience of the performing arts industry. Awards are voted on by a committee comprised of long-time APAP members and other luminaries from the performing arts world.
This year’s honorees include trailblazing choreographer, cultural leader, and institution-builder Cleo Parker Robinson; far-reaching arts advocate and field-spanning service champion Renae Williams Niles; internationally respected curator and longtime performing arts executive Alicia B. Adams; artist-mobility policy leader and global cultural-exchange advocate Matthew Covey; nationally influential presenter, arts policy voice, and community-connector Colleen Jennings-Roggensack; and multidisciplinary artist, composer, and social-justice innovator Samora Pinderhughes.
“On behalf of APAP, our Board and Board Alumni, our member community, and all who champion the arts, I extend my deepest congratulations to the APAP Honorees. Their leadership and contributions have made an indelible impact on the field at large and the communities they serve.” remarked APAP President and CEO Lisa Richards Toney. “Because of their undaunted commitment to both artistry and service, we are privileged to bear witness to an abundance of riches that emanate from their collective impact—resulting in stronger, healthier communities, vibrant cities, and towns, and a more humane and connected society. What reverberates from their excellence not only elevates the present but also future-proofs our role and purpose as an industry.”
During The APAP Honors ceremony, the North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (NAPAMA) and the Creative and Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA) will also celebrate their own awardees. NAPAMA will award the NAPAMA Award for Excellence in Presenting the Performing Arts and the NAPAMA Liz Silverstein Agent-Manager of the Year Award. CIPA will award the CIPA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Producing to Emma Orme. The winner of APAP’s Halsey and Alice North Board Alumni Award (to be announced in an earlier ceremony at APAP|NYC) will also be recognized.
2026 Awardees of the APAP Honors
Cleo Parker Robinson will receive the Award of Merit for achievement in the performing arts.
Cleo Parker Robinson is a visionary choreographer, cultural leader, and founder whose five-decade devotion to the healing power of dance has shaped generations of artists and audiences. As Founder and Artistic Director of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, she has built a world-renowned institution rooted in African American traditions and committed to movement as a unifying force, creating and commissioning over 100 original works in collaboration with major figures in American modern dance. With her Ensemble touring to more than 40 countries and reaching over a million people, she has cultivated a dynamic ecosystem that includes the professional company, Cleo II, a Youth Ensemble, an Academy of Dance, an International Summer Dance Institute, community development programs, and a 240-seat theatre at the heart of Denver’s Five Points. In January 2026, her organization will expand with the opening of the Cleo Parker Robinson Healing Center for the Arts, a 25,000-square-foot hub dedicated to creativity, restoration, and community. Recognized globally as an arts ambassador and activist, she continues to honor the legacy of the African Diaspora while inspiring new generations through her enduring philosophy of “One Spirit, Many Voices.”
“It is such an honor knowing that I stand on the shoulders of those iconic artists and visionaries who have made such significant contributions to the arts and social awareness, not only in our own country but around the world.” Cleo Parker Robinson shared upon receiving the news, “As artists, we seek always to uplift community, to build bridges of respect and courage, peace and understanding. Let us continue to do so now and always.”
Renae Williams Niles will receive the Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the field of professional presenting.
A four-decade arts leader whose career has encompassed presenting, booking, grantmaking, teaching, fundraising, and consulting, Renae Williams Niles has supported, commissioned, and advised more than 100 dance artists, musicians, composers, filmmakers, and cultural leaders. Since 1997, she has served as a grant panelist, advisor, and nominator for regional and national government agencies and foundations, while contributing her expertise to numerous boards—including Dance/USA, thirteen years with Western Arts Alliance, and as a founding member of the Dance Hall of Fame board. Her long association with APAP includes service on the membership committee and the EmcArts Innovation Lab team, followed by leadership on the Executive, Governance, Conference, and Finance committees before her term as board chair beginning in 2021. She has also been a frequent moderator of APAP plenaries. Her commitment to advancing the performing arts has been recognized by WAA, the California Legislative Black Caucus, and Dance Lab New York.
“I am so grateful for the career I have been fortunate to have, thanks in large part, to the APAP community, and to my official and unofficial mentors, many who are also recipients of the Fan Taylor award.” Renae Williams-Niles expressed, “Receiving this meaningful recognition further motivates me to do more in service to this field I deeply cherish.”
Alicia B. Adams will receive the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and sustained achievement in programming.
For more than three decades, Alicia B. Adams served as Vice President of International Programming and Dance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she played a central role in developing, curating, and expanding the Center’s global artistic vision. Since joining the institution in 1992 as Special Assistant to Chairman James Wolfensohn, she helped guide the evolution of its programs and policies, and went on to conceive and produce major international festivals, exhibitions, and platforms for contemporary theater and dance. Her impact extends well beyond Washington, with influential leadership roles at prominent New York organizations including Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Belafonte Enterprises, City Center Theater, Harlem School of the Arts, and International Production Associates. Throughout her career, she has championed cross-cultural exchange and artistic excellence, shaping the field through a commitment to expansive, internationally engaged programming.
“I am so honored to be selected for this award and to be a part of the 2026 class of APAP honorees.” Alicia B. Adams explained, “I have had an exciting but also challenging journey throughout my career. To be recognized by my peers for this work is truly humbling.”
Matthew Covey will receive the Sidney R. Yates Advocacy Award for outstanding advocacy on behalf of the performing arts.
An arts worker, attorney, and activist, Matthew Covey has dedicated his career to strengthening international artistic exchange and advancing the rights and mobility of performers around the world. His wide-ranging experience—as a touring musician, talent buyer, agent, and manager—led him to become a leading global voice on artist mobility. He is a founding board member of Tamizdat, the Brooklyn-based NGO focused on legal research, education, and advocacy related to U.S.-bound artist visas, and the founding partner of CoveyLaw, a firm serving the legal needs of the international cultural community. He speaks internationally on immigration, mobility, equity, and cultural policy, and contributes to the field through board service with On The Move and Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History, as well as through co-founding the Live|Arts|Lab policy summits. His work continues to expand pathways for artists to connect, collaborate, and share their voices across borders.
“Personally and on behalf of the Tamizdat team, I am enormously honored to receive APAP’s Sidney R. Yates Advocacy Award.” Honoree Matthew Covey affirmed, “APAP has provided a network that has facilitated Tamizdat’s advocacy, a platform that amplifies our voice, a partner with which to collaborate, and a family that supports us.”
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack will receive the Arts Champion Award for her leadership, vision, and far-reaching impact on the national and international performing arts landscape.
As Vice President for Cultural Affairs at Arizona State University and Executive Director of ASU Gammage, Kerr, and the 365 Community Union, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack advances a mission of Connecting Communities™, redefining how the arts engage, educate, and empower. Arizona’s only Tony Awards® voter, she has held prominent leadership roles within The Broadway League—serving as Vice Chair of the Road and contributing to seven key committees—and has helped shape policy and advocacy efforts through organizations including Arts Action Fund, Broadway Green Alliance, Black Theatre United, Women of Color in the Arts, Major University Presenters, APAP, and Creative Capital. Appointed by President Clinton to the National Council on the Arts, she has also influenced global presenting through the International Presenters Consortium and has spoken internationally in Scotland, Germany, and the Netherlands. A cultural envoy to multiple countries, she is a longtime advocate for equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts. Her contributions have been recognized with honors including the 2024 Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre, Arizona’s 48 Most Intriguing Women, the National Society of Arts and Letters Award, Black Philanthropist Honors, the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award, and the OU Odyssey Award 2025.
Colleen Jennings-Roggensack asserts, “This is not the time to circle the wagons, it never was. It is the time to open the doors and windows to let everyone in. It’s time to ask my three seminal questions which I ask of all artists. What do you want? What do I want? And what do we want together? It is time to ask these questions of our global cultural communities. We must understand that it matters who carries our water. We must believe that art and culture deepen our curiosities, makes the unfamiliar familiar and guides us to respect the past, live in the present, while we innovate and prepare for the future.”
She continues, “In these chaotic times, remember artists provide lenses, and we provide access. We connect the communities to the artists and their visions. This is no easy task as art is messy because people are messy. Rather than think about what we had and what we lost, we must focus on what we want and what we need.”
Samora Pinderhughes will receive the Spark of Change Award for his trailblazing innovation and vision in the presenting, creative producing, booking, and touring field.
A pianist/vocalist, multidisciplinary artist, composer, and filmmaker, Samora Pinderhughes is recognized for emotionally resonant, rigorously crafted work that merges artistic expression with social transformation. As founder and Artistic & Executive Director of The Healing Project, he leads a community-driven initiative that partners with people impacted by the prison industrial complex to advance narrative change and collective healing. His collaborative reach spans artists such as Herbie Hancock, Glenn Ligon, Common, Titus Kaphar, Sara Bareilles, Simone Leigh, Daveed Diggs, Kyle Abraham, Branford Marsalis, Chief Adjuah, and Robert Glasper, and his contributions to arts and social justice include his work with Blackout for Human Rights and his musical direction for #MLKNow and #JusticeForFlint. His albums—including The Transformations Suite, GRIEF, Venus Smiles Not in the House of Tears, and 2025’s Black Spring—and his Emmy-winning film scores for Whose Streets? and Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project reflect a practice grounded in truth-telling and imagination. As the 2025 MoMA Adobe Creative Resident, he will debut a new exhibition and performance series at MoMA in early 2026. Through both art and activism, he is forging pathways toward abolition, connection, and structural change.
“I believe deeply in the revolutionary capacity of art. This is done not just through the work we create, but also through the ways we impact communities, the possibility of our ideas, the ways we treat people, the messages we put out, and the ways we can resist ‘what is’ in favor of ‘what can be’. Not just through what we make, but how and why we make it, and who gets to participate in it.” explained innovator and awardee Samora Pinderhughes. “I’m humbled and grateful to be recognized in this way and will continue to pledge my life towards abolition and transformative change through creativity.”
The APAP Honors is sponsored by IMG Artists.
Main Image: (Left to Right) Alicia B. Adams, Matthew Covey, Renae Williams Niles, Samora Pinderhughes, Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, Cleo Parker Robinson
This post was last modified on December 4, 2025 1:55 pm