DANIEL A. KELIN II has served as the Honolulu Theatre for Youth Director of Drama Education since 1987 and is currently President of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (2011-2013). A nationally recognized Master Teaching Artist in Drama/Theatre, he is on the National Teaching Artist roster of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Dan holds an MFA in Child Drama from the University of Hawaii and has served as a Consultant and Trainer for many arts and social service organizations nationally and internationally.
A 2009 Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar in Education, Dan spent April-October of 2010 in India working with several schools on the implementation of a culture/history/drama integrated program. Through such organizations as the American Consulate, the Fulbright office and the English Language Teachers Association of India, he taught workshops in schools and universities all over Southern India. Dan was one of the first national Teaching Artist fellows with the Montalvo Arts Center in CA. ASSITEJ/USA awarded him the Ann Shaw Fellowship to collaborate with the Aazhi Children’s Theatre in Pondicherry, India in 2006. The American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) named him the 1995 Youth Theatre Director of the Year. In 2002, he was the runner-up recipient of the SCBWI Barbara Karlin grant and recipient of the AATE Lin Wright Special Recognition award for work with pre-service teachers. The Children’s Theatre Association of American named him an Aurand Harris Playwriting Fellow.
Dan co-founded the Hawaii Professional Development Task Force which guides the statewide development of arts education programming and training. He was also a part of the team that created the Hawaii Arts First K-5 Toolkit for classroom teachers.
He performed traditional Beijing Opera in several cities across China as a part of the first all non-Chinese company to perform for Chinese audiences, sponsored by the Chinese government. He has danced Marshallese step dances for the chiefs of those tiny islands, staged a large-scale folk theatre performance with young people for the South Pacific Economic Forum, and performed in radio drama in Vanuatu.
An award winning writer, Dan has authored three books, the most recent being In Their Own Words: Drama with Young English Language Learners. Other writing has appeared in NCTE’s Talking Points, NCSS’s Social Studies and the Young Learner, Early Childhood Education Journal, Multicultural Review, AATE's Incite/Insight, Teaching Artist Journal, Storytelling Magazine, Parabola, Spider, Highlights for Children and many others.
Dan regularly presents at conferences across the globe, including: 'Storytelling and Cultural Identity' in the Azores Islands, ‘Pacific Culture and Identity’ in Pohnpei, Art and Archaeology in Sri Lanka, the International Federation of Teachers of English in Australia, University of Hawaii Pacific Studies and Library Studies program, the National Association for Multicultural Education, Theatre Communications Group, Popular Culture, and annually for the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, among others.
“Observing Dan’s expertise was a real plus. How he scaffolds lessons, how he manages behavior and supports learning was a real learning opportunity for me.”
4th grade Teacher