Chuck Davis was one of the foremost, beloved teachers and choreographers of traditional African dance in America. He traveled extensively in Africa and the diaspora to study with leading African artists. Davis founded the Chuck Davis Dance Company in New York City in 1968 and the African American Dance Ensemble in Durham, NC in 1983. He founded DanceAfrica at BAM in 1977, where it has become the longest-running series; it expanded to other cities. He served on many distinguished panels and received numerous awards and accolades, including honorary doctorates. In 2010, the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation founded the GlaxoSmithKline Charles “Chuck” Davis Endowment, and BAM established the Chuck Davis Emerging Choreographer Fellowship in 2015. His archives are held at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Abdel R. Salaam is the Artistic Director of DanceAfrica, the Executive Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, founded in 1981, and a critically acclaimed choreographer. Born in Harlem, he has served as a dancer, teacher, and performing artist on five continents throughout his 56-year career in the dance and theater worlds. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for excellence in dance and dance theater including the 2017 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production of “The Healings Sevens” at DanceAfrica and the 2019 American Dance Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance. During his artistic direction and leadership, DanceAfrica received the 2021 Bessie Award for Outstanding Service to the Field of Dance. Abdel continues to dedicate his life's work to the healing and empowerment of us all.

Al Crawford is a NYC based lighting artist working globally in a broad variety of genres. He currently serves as the General Manager of City Theatrical, Inc the world’s prominent manufacturer of bespoke lighting products and accessories. 

Al was the Lighting Director of the world renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 25 years. While with the Company, he produced the lighting for Ailey in virtually every major theater, performing arts center, and opera house on the planet, having toured to 48 states and over 60 countries including historically significant performances in Russia, China, and South Africa. He has had the opportunity to design for many important choreographers in the dance world, including Judith Jamison, Robert Battle, Garth Fagan, Matthew Rushing, Ron Brown, George Faison, Mark Dendy, Trey McIntyre, Christopher Huggins, Hope Boykin, Osnel Delgado, Jeanguy Saintus, Baba Chuck Davis, and others. In addition to maintaining the Ailey repertoire, he has designed 21 new works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and 12 for Ailey II. 

Crawford founded Arc3design, a lighting design group dedicated to merging his theatrical aesthetic into all areas of art, architecture, dance, live music, theater, broadcast, and live event production. Arc3design creates the lighting for over 100 projects annually. Recent and current projects include architectural installations at New York Central Synagogue, Barbizon Lighting World Headquarters, World Trade Center NYC, New Jersey Performing Arts Center; dance design for BAM’s Dance Africa, Haiti’s Ayikodans, Cuba’s Malpaso Dance Company, Trinity Irish Dance Company, Limon Dance Company and HopeBoykinDance; and events including multiple state dinners for the White House (Obama Administration), Cedar Point’s multimillion dollar light show Luminosity, Sea World’s Electric Ocean, and brand events for Spotify, Google, YouTube, Samsung, Intel, Dom Perignon, and Lamborghini.

Al has served on the Board of Directors of the Gilbert Hemsley Lighting Programs and the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He currently serves on the advisory board of the Studio School of Design. 

Al has been awarded the Knight of Illumination Award, considered globally to be one of the top achievements in Lighting Design. He is a member of United Scenic Artists (USA-829) and the International Alliance for Theatrical Stage Employees (Local 635). He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

David Margolin Lawson is a New York-based sound designer, composer, and recording engineer. He has worked with, recorded, and designed for many New York area performing arts organizations including:  Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), La Mama, E. T. C., The Juilliard School, The Public Theater, The Signature Theater, UP Theater Company, HERE Arts Center, The New School, Repertorio Español, Urban Stages, and others. Recent works include the Neuma Records release of SIGNALS. Nearly an hour of new, electronic instrumental music co-composed with David Merrill (lawsonandmerrill.com). David is a faculty member at Pace University where he teaches courses in Theatrical Sound Design.

Jasiri AU Kafele is a Brooklyn native artist and founder of KA Decorative Corp, which has been doing decorative painting for over 30 years. He is a mixed-media artist creating in photography and plaster sculpture, and he participated in the Brooklyn performing arts movement as a poet throughout the 90s.

Kristin Colvin Young is honored to be a part of DanceAfrica 2024. Kristin is the Manager of Dance Production at The Juilliard School. Her journey leading up to this distinguished position includes roles as Production Stage Manager for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (2000—2023) and Company/Stage Manager for Parsons Dance Company (1997—2000), and she was a founding member of Battleworks Dance Company in 2002. Young started her career at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 1997, and has since had the pleasure of working with choreographers such as Judith Jamison, Ronald K. Brown, Wayne McGregor, Alonzo King, Camille A. Brown, and Jamar Roberts. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College with a BA in dance and sociology, Young frequently lectures at colleges and universities, encouraging the next generation of stage managers.

Ngoma Woolbright is a native of Jacksonville, FL. He began his career as a stage manager in 1968 with the Chuck Davis Company, where he later became technical director. He has worked with several dance companies in and around New York City. Until recently, he was the technical director for the Forces of Nature. Woolbright’s credits include Lyon and the Jewel, Frankenstein’s Rib, The Greatest of All Time, and Muhammed Wait for Me. He has been stage manager for DanceAfrica since its inception in 1977.

Normadien Woolbright is a graduate of the Performing Arts High School, holds a BA in dance education from Lehman College, and studied with Chuck Davis beginning as a teenager. She became artistic director of the Chuck Davis Dance Company when Davis relocated to Durham, NC in 1989. She now serves as road manager and director of educational projects for the African American Dance Ensemble. She remains active in the field of dancing through teaching, performing, and participating in school residencies.

Jeremiah Bischoff started his career in radio before switching to live dance and opera production. Jeremiah has stage and production managed for American Ballet Theatre, Ballet Hispanico, American Repertory Ballet, Hamptons Dance Project, Ballet Sun Valley, and Isabella (Boylston) and Friends, among other companies. He is excited to again be a part of DanceAfrica this season!

Ibiwunmi Omotayo Olaiya aka Wunmi is a singer, songwriter, performer, and fashion designer born in London and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. Wunmi is regularly commissioned to design costumes for the most influential choreographers and dance companies of our time, and was awarded a ‘Bessie’ (New York Dance and Performance Award) for her work with both Ronald K. Brown and Marlies Yearby. 

Wunmi was commissioned to design and produce costumes for the 66th Annual Grammy awards. Her designs were also featured on the HBO hit series And Just Like That.

Wunmi was formally trained at the London College of Fashion, and was partner in a number of small design companies before starting her own line, Wow Wow by Wunmi, in 2012.  Wow Wow is primarily crafted in Nigeria and Togo, where Wunmi works closely with textile artisans and a small group of tailors, to create her exclusive line of heirloom- quality, one of a kind pieces. The online store is up and growing! Check it out at wowwow.wunmi.com

This DanceAfrica favorite returns to the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House for the 25th year. The ensemble serves as a symbol of youth involvement in the preservation of African heritage, celebrating both ancestral roots and the modern-day community.

Karen Thornton (Artistic Director) hails from Brooklyn, New York and is proud of it.. She started her dance training at the age of five after seeing a production of Swan Lake which inspired her. She has studied dance at the Clark Center for Performing Arts, Broadway Dance Center (New York & Japan), Steps, Martha Graham School, Dance Theater of Harlem, Brooklyn College, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, where she was a merit scholarship recipient and a member of the Alvin Ailey 3 Workshop under Kelvin Rotardier. Karen, an Audelco Award winner for outstanding achievement and recipient of AbunDance Award Leader of the Path Award, has taught dance in numerous places around the world. Karen's television credits include The New Show, Best Talk in Town, The McCreary Report, Deja View, and the tv sitcom Here and Now. Stage credits include the national and international productions of Orpheu Negro (New York & Vienna, Austria with Dance /Brazil), American Griot (NY), Black Nativity (NJ), Pecong (NJ), Wole Soyinka, Body and Soul (European Tour), Synchronicity (Osaka & Tokyo, Japan Tour), The People Could Fly (The Apollo Theater, NY), and the movie Fighting Back directed by Sidney Poitier. Karen recently started her own company, KTD/Ascension Arts, to showcase her talents as a dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She has studied under a plethora of world class teachers, all masters in their craft and art. Karen is presently the Program Manager for The Billie's Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble. She thanks her family and friends for their continued support in allowing her wings to open wide and take to the heights in flight throughout the years. And as always, “TO GOD BE THE GLORY!”

The DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers was founded in 2016 by Baba Abdel R. Salaam to theatrically honor the ancestors of Africa and its diaspora through the annual DanceAfrica Memorial Tribute, originally developed by the late Baba Chuck Davis. The group comprises professional dance artists and musicians from the RestorationART alumni and Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, melding African vernacular forms with modern, hip-hop, and contemporary dance. The DanceAfrica Spiritwalkers is a division of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre.

Women Of The Calabash was formed in 1978 by its founder and artistic director, the late Madeleine Yayodele Nelson. Yayo, as she was affectionately called, was respected as a vocalist, vocal arranger, percussionist, and master of the craft of playing and making shekeres. Her scope and expertise brought her to the attention of Paul Simon with whom she performed on his album Rhythm Of The Saints and received a platinum record.

The phenomenal performance ensemble combines traditional instruments, vocals, and traditional music forms with contemporary influences. Through their performance and informal dialogue, Women Of The Calabash introduce audiences of all ages to the history and playing techniques of a wide variety of instruments. By performing a variety of music from Africa, the Caribbean and Black America, this ensemble crosses boundaries of style and instrumentation to give unity and context to the African American experience.   

Women Of The Calabash has shared billing with many well-known performers, including The Temptations, Richie Havens, Phillip Glass, Odetta, and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. The group has performed for former Presidents Tomas Sankura of Burkina Faso, Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and for audiences at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Town Hall in New York.  

Cited as “Musicians Extraordinaire” by the National Council for Culture and Art, Women Of The Calabash also received the prestigious Monarch Merit Award, Blue Ribbon for Best Music Video from the American Film Festival, and the CINE Golden Eagle Award. HBO featured Women Of The Calabash in a Black History month profile in 1997.  Women Of The Calabash have been teaching artists for Symphony Space since 1989, traveling throughout the NYC boroughs inspiring students with strong content and experiential learning for diverse communities.

The current members dedicated to keeping the legacy alive include Joan Ashley, Caren Calder-Adams, Susan Rapalee, and Carole Caru Thompson.

Siren—Protectors of the Rainforest has been around since February 2008. We have toured the United States and Canada. We are 30+ dancers strong and have performed for African presidents and many other dignitaries but really believe that art should be available to the public. We perform with a maximum of five dancers and four musicians, depending on the engagement.

We are a 501c3 dance company with an eco heart. Our goal is to preserve, promote, and present the knowledge passed down through generations through art, dance, history, music, and culture. By forming comprehensive and innovative educational programming using artistic expression and African arts, we enlighten diverse audiences and bring vital context to today’s issues, from climate change to food accessibility and the crisis at the Southern Border.

We started in Brooklyn, NY with African dance for the purpose of reconnecting people back to preserving the homeland—Mother Earth. We are dedicated to preserving culture through music, dance, visual arts, and history. Most importantly, we are dedicated to preserving the rainforests, not only for us but for generations to come. We use dance and music as a platform to educate people about environmental conservation, primarily deforestation.

We accomplish our work through community conversations; community engagements as residencies or one-time workshops on African dances, music, and history; arts in education residencies with a focus on African performance and visual arts; and African dance performances for the general public—each show is curated for the audience.

Current partnerships include HumanitiesNY, US UNESCO Clubs and Federation, Bedford Stuyvesant Residents Association, UNESCO Center for Global Education, and The AfroAtlantic Theologies & Treaties Institute.

Mambo Tse is known as a choreographer, artistic director, and performance artist. Over the past 17 years, she has conducted many community engagement workshops on African dances, histories, music, and cultures globally.

Mambo Tse was crowned the MAFOR of Alahnkyi in 2016. She is a dedicated and committed community activist who was a cultural coordinator of UNESCO Center for Peace in 2013. She was voted Best Soukous Entertainer at the International Reggae and World Music Awards in 2004 with Soukous Stars. She has received much acclaim from organizations she has volunteered in. She is the founder of Siren—Protectors of the Rainforest, and has taken her group on corporate-sponsored tours around the United States and Canada. In 2024, her group is headlining at BAM’s DanceAfrica, bringing to NYC rare dances from the Cameroon peoples. She won the 2019 NoVo Foundation Innovation in Programming Award from Education First and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors for its community conversations series.

She has toured with the Wailers on the east coast of the United States, and was invited to the award ceremony of Her Excellency President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson of Liberia for The Hunger Project Africa Prize for Leadership because of the non-profit work she and her group had been doing in sub-Saharan Africa. She has also partnered with The Global Institute for Total Human Development to build wells and schools in Cameroon from 2008 to 2010, and she headlined the Hispanico Magazine at Jacob Riis Houses 10th Annual AIDS Awareness for residents of NYCHA. Of all the stages she has held captive, the one that, according to her, makes her feel accomplished is her performance for Chinua Achebe, Africa’s late literary giant, during his receipt of the Lillian Gish Prize for Literature.

She is from Ambazonia but was born in Cameroon, grazed in Texas, and now resides in Brooklyn.

Born in Brooklyn, Amma D. McKen has been singing traditional Yoruba Orisa music for over 50 years and is one the most requested singers for Orisa music in the country. The Orisa songs are sacred chants used for worship of Olodumare (God in Yoruba), the Orisa (deities and God personified), and the elements of life and nature.  As a priestess of Yemonja since 1979, she is also a dancer, a professional tie-dye artist, clothing designer, natural hair stylist, and owner of Abeokuta Enterprises, an African-inspired apparel company. 

In 2009, she was selected as one of the recipients of the nation's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts, the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship. The awardees were chosen for their artistic excellence and contributions to their respective artistic traditions. Amma became the first African American female Akpon to produce a musical recording of the traditional songs, titled Alaako Oso: Owner of the Songs is Eloquent (Nusori 2007). In 2014 she performed as a featured singer in a tribute to Celia Cruz at the Apollo Theater, and at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s opening performances with director Wynton Marsalis, who presented his large-scale work Ochas with renowned Cuban percussionist Pedrito Martínez and Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. In 2017, she received a grant from the Queens Council on the Arts to collaborate on a new work titled Where the Waters Meet: Songs of Two Mothers, centered on the relationship between Oshun and Yemonja. In 2021, she performed as a vocalist with Pedrito Martínez at Carnegie Hall.

Amma holds several roles and titles in Yoruba tradition and spirituality, including Akpon, a lead singer and officiator for the drumming and dancing celebrations—a title held by very few people, and critical to keeping the tradition in place. She is a sought-after Akpon, and has been requested to lead Bembes (sacred celebrations) throughout the United States and the Caribbean. The work of an Akpon is very arduous, requiring that they memorize and sing over 100 different songs and rhythms during a ceremony that may last anywhere from one to five hours. She holds the ceremony or gathering together, and through sacred songs and dance transforms the gathering for all the participants. The Akpon is responsible for teaching and passing on the tradition to other practitioners. 

Amma is the director and co-founder of Omiyesa, a New York cultural music group founded in 1972, which offers a wide range of apprenticeships, workshops, lecture demonstrations, and long-term residencies in Afro-Cuban and Orisa songs, dance, and music. She has been teaching for over 45 years, through individual and group classes in traditional and nontraditional settings. Amma also offers master artist apprenticeships for individuals and/or groups interested in an intensive study of Yoruba Orisa song and dance. In 1998, she collaborated with the African American Dance Ensemble, directed by Chuck Davis, and the Carolina Theater to stage the well-received production Cultural Journey Back to the Roots.

Amma has been invited and selected to sing for thousands of Bembes and religious ceremonies by practitioners in and outside the United States for over 50 years.  Amma began studying as a singer and dancer under the tutelage of various elders of the tradition and she has taken a holistic and contextual approach to the tradition, learning the genre as both an art form and an aspect of her spiritual practice as a devotee and initiate.  The primary means of her education came through regular attendance at dance classes and active participation in Bembes; formal apprenticeships as well as self-guided study.  

In addition to holding the title of Akpon, Amma is an active and lifelong practitioner of the tradition. She was initiated as a priestess of Yemonja in 1979 and given the name Omiyale, and provides guidance and teachings to practitioners in respect to the Yoruba cosmology, history, rituals, and cultural context of the tradition. She has initiated others into this tradition and holds the title Iyalorisa (ordained priest who can ordain others). In addition, she is a founding member of the Egbe Omo Yemonja, which was founded in 1988.  The Egbe Omo Yemonja is a society of initiated priests of the Yemonja, and one of the organized groups of the tradition that is responsible for promoting and preserving the Yoruba Orisa tradition. She holds the title of Ellegun within the Egbe, which is the one who holds and carries Ogunleki (the ancestral lineage of Yemonja). This title must be earned by years of initiation as well as astuteness, technical ability, and understanding of the tradition. The Egbe produces a cultural festival every year in New York to honor the Orisa Yemonja. Amma has played a significant role in producing this traditional festival as it was practiced in Nigeria, which attracts over 1,000 practitioners of the tradition every year from all over the world.  She is also the lead Akpon for this festival, which includes music, song and dance.  Mostly, recently in 2023, she was installed as a Chief in Osgobo, Nigeria, sponsored by Chief Agbongbon Fakayode Faniyi and Chief Ifáyẹmi Ọ̀ṣúndàgbonù Elebuibon and orchestrated by Baba Onifade. She holds the title of Chief Asiwanju Mojulewi.

For over five decades, Amma has added value, knowledge, cultural texture, and spirit to the traditional Yoruba/Lukumi community. Her contributions to the culture as an Akpon, teacher, and avid practitioner allow people from all cultures to tap into this traditional African culture. She helps people to truly understand the tradition as it was practiced centuries ago. She preserves the traditional songs of Yoruba and helps participants connect with the history and spiritual context of the tradition.  She has traveled to Puerto Rico, Brazil, and Nigeria, and has studied and learned traditional Orisa music in the context of that particular country.

Amma’s mentors and instructors include the late Chief Hawthorne Bey, singer and drummer of traditional Orisa and West African music, and musical director of Charles Moore Dance Company; the late Olukose Anthony Wiles, singer and drummer of traditional Orisa and West African music, co-founder of Omiyesa, co-founder of Maimouna Keita School of African Dance and MFOA (Messages from our Ancestors); the late Orlando Puntilla Rios, renowned singer and lead drummer of Orisa music; the late Russell Bourghs, singer of Orisa music; and the late, Kwame Ishangi, drummer, singer, dancer, and director of Ishangi Dance Family. 

Amma is an elder in the community. As a founding member of International African American Ballet, in which she performed during the 70s and early 80s as dancer, singer and costume designer, she is sought out for advice and expertise. She is a member of the Council of Elders of DanceAfrica.