About Kulu Mele

Who we are

Kulu Mele includes the following artists: Baba Robert Crowder (founder), Dorothy Wilkie (artistic director), John Wilkie (music director), Kenneth Fauntleroy (drummer), Omar Salahu-din Harrison (drummer), Arisa Ingram (dancer), Gregory "Ishmale" Jackson (drummer), Ama Schley (dancer), Payin Schley (dancer), and Angela Watson (dancer).

Biographies of Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble members

Baba Crowder (Founder and Director/Drummer) began drumming as a child in North Philadelphia in the late 1930s. Africa attracted him even then, and he sought out every opportunity to hear great drummers like Jean Leon Destine (Haiti), Chano Pozo and Desi Arnaz (Cuba), and Ladji Camara (Guinea). He began to to see commonalties between African music from different places, and began "searching for our lost heritage." He found ways to school himself, and began to study with percussionist John Hines after Hines had just finished a tour in Cuba with Katherine Dunham. In the 1940s-1960s, Crowder learned Haitian, Brazilian, and African drum traditions from native artists, including Ghanaian drummer Saka Acquaye, who was highly influential. (Crowder recorded an album with Acquaye in the 1960s that has recently been re-released by Nonesuch). In these years, Crowder also lived near and worked with many fine jazz musicians, including McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane. After the revolution in Cuba, Lazaro Prieto and his mother Rita, from Matanzas, arrived in Philadelphia; Crowder's education in music and culture deepened. Ms. Prieto was one of the people responsible for Crowder's enlightenment into the orisha world. One of the first African American drummers in Philadelphia to study batá drumming, Crowder has long been in the vanguard of an African cultural renaissance in Philadelphia. Several generations of African American dancers and drummers, both in Philadelphia and in New York, now trace their roots through him. He has received the region's most prestigious award for artists, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. The Lee Cultural Center, where Kulu Mele has long taught and rehearsed, has a mural on its walls honoring Crowder.

Dorothy Wilkie (Artistic Director/Choreographer) began to pursue serious study of a wide repertoire of African and African Diasporan dance in 1955, approaching the genre as both an art form and (eventually) as an aspect of her spiritual practice as an orisha devotee and initiate. She gained a dance education primarily through regular attendance at dance and drumming conferences such as Kankouran, active participation in bembés, formal apprenticeships, self-guided study, and attendance at regular classes and workshops. She has pursued intensive study of Nigerian and Ghanaian dance with master drummer Robert Crowder, and with Saudah Bey, and has studied with Jackie Corley, James Marshall, Baba Ishangi, Xiomara Rodrigez (Afro-Cuban), Tenenfig Dioubate, M'Bemba Bangoura and Youssouf Koumbassa (Guinea) and others. She has also pursued formal study in Guinea with Les Ballets Africaine (2000), in Senegal with the National Dance Company of Senegal (2003), and in Cuba. She has performed with such ensembles as Chuck Davis, Nuevo Generacion, and Ilu Aiye. She choreographs Odunde's Hucklebuck to Hip-Hop productions featuring African American vernacular social dances like the Mambo, Bop, Slop, and the Cha-Cha - dances she excelled in growing up in North Philadelphia. Wilkie also choreographs the bulk of Kulu Mele's repertoire. She has choreographed for Lantern Theater Company and for African Rhythms at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2007, she was awarded a prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts for dance choreography.

John Wilkie (Music Director/Drummer) started playing conga drums in the 1950s in high school in North Philadelphia. His first mentors and teachers were William Powell and Charles Brown, both noted percussionists among the first generation of Philadelphians to undertake extensive study of African and African Cuban hand-drum traditions. Later, Wilkie met Robert Crowder, and studied batá with him, as well as with Garvin Masseaux, master Cuban drummer Kikiyu (Enrique Admiral), and a circle of others. At this time, in the 1970s, Wilkie began as a member of the Kulu Mele African Dance Ensemble. While studying with Kikiyu he began drumming at bembes, spiritual gatherings, and workshops. He began studying under Kwesi (Darrell Burgee), learning djembe and West African drumming. In the early 1990s, Wilkie joined Jaasu Ballet. He has traveled to Guinea, Senegal, and Cuba for drum study. He has been a member of the Spoken Hand Drum Society and a Philadelphia Folklore Project artist in residence.

Zoia Cisneros (Dancer) from Caracas, Venezuela, has been studying traditional Venezuelan and Caribbean dance since she was six. She came to the U.S. in 1993 and widened her study of dance, exploring modern, jazz, West African, hip-hop and capoeira. She earned a BA in Anthropology and French from Bates College and has received fellowships for dance education and dance research that have allowed her to work in her native Venezuela as well as in Trinidad, Martinique, Gambia, Senegal and Australia. In addition to dancing with Kulu Mele, she has also performed in Philadelphia with Clyde Evans, Jr.'s CHOSEN (House, Breakin', Hip Hop, Poppin' and Lockin' forms of Hip Hop dance) and Montazh (an all-women modern-jazz and hip hop dance company) and Tania Isaacs Dance Projects (a contemporary Caribbean and modern dance company).

Kenneth Fauntleroy (Drummer) first came to Kulu Mele in the 1970s after studying congas and batá drums with Robert Crowder. He has traveled to Haiti and Cuba for study. In addition to playing with Kulu Mele, he has performed with the Ione Nash Dance Company, Spoken Hand Drum Society, and with jazz greats including Philly Joe Jones, Sun Ra, and Byard Lancaster. Fauntleroy also teaches percussion at the Lee Cultural Center and in other after-school programs.

Omar Salahu-din Harrison (Drummer) has been studying djembe drumming since 1998. He first played conga drums with a local Philadelphia ensemble called the Young Lions, and went on to further study of conga (African American, Haitian, Cuban, Congolese, and Ghanaian), batá (Nigerian, Cuban), djembe (Malian, Guinean, Ivory Coast, and Senegalese), and sabar and kutiro drums (Senegalese). His teachers include Ken "Skip" Burton, Greg "Peache" Jarmon, Baba Robert Crowder, John Wilkie, and African masters such as Malle Fainke and Kissima Diabate.

Arisa Ingram (Dancer) has been dancing since she was a very young child. Bortn in Philadelphia, but raised in Accra, Ghana, she danced with the Ishangi Family dancers under the tutelage of her father, Baba Ishangi. Arisa has traveled to (and studied in) Senegal, Nigeria, Liberia and the Gambia. She has studied orisha dancing in Bermuda, Haiti, Cuba and Puerto Rico. A member of Kulu Mele for nine years, Arisa has choreographed for Kulu Mele, and for other ensembles and African dance companies. She is currently teaching in an orisha rights of passage program in New York City.


Gregory "Ishmale" Jackson (Drummer) has performed as a percussionist at the Wilma, Zellerbach, Painted Bride, African American Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music, ODUNDE, the New York Street Festival and elsewhere. Jackson has studied with Baba Robert Crowder, John Wilkie, Greg "Peache" Jarman, Mussa and the National Benin Folklorical Ensemble (Benin), and M'Bemba Bangoura (Guinea). Mr. Jackson has played for E.A.S.Y-BO Montu and Elegba Society in Virgina, and is presently with the Little Africa Drum ensemble (specializing in Cuban Rumba), and Troupe DADA, as well as Kulu Mele.

Ama Schley (Dancer) started dancing long before she can recall. Her mother, Carol Butcher, who danced and performed with the Arthur Hall Afro-American Dance Ensemble, would take Ama and her twin sister, Payin, to rehearsals, dance classes, and performances. It was in these settings that her mother saw Schley's passion for dance. Schley began studying jazz, tap, ballet, African and modern at La Cher Tari Dance School. She stopped dancing in 1991 but returned to it when she moved to San Diego, California to study African dance with her father Yaw Asiedu. She performed with several companies directed by her father from 1997 to 2001. Upon returning to Philadelphia, she joined Kulu Mele, where she has had the opportunity to study Afro-Cuban and West African dance with Dorothy Wilkie, Tenefig Dioubate, and Kissima Diabate. She has also studied with Renaldo Gonzalez. Schley has taught dance classes for the Jolof Empire Organization at schools throughout Philadelphia.

Payin Schley (Dancer) like her twin sister Ama, started dance with her mother Carol Butcher at La Cher Tari Dance School, studying various dance disciplines like jazz, tap, ballet, and modern from 1986 to 1991. She returned to dance in 2003 when she joined Kulu Mele, where she has had the opportunity to study Afro-Cuban and West African dance with Dorothy Wilkie, Tenefig Dioubate, and Kissima Diabate. In 2003, Schley toured with the late Baba Ishangi and the Ishangi Family Dancers in Jacksonville, Florida, Fairfax, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

History and mission

Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble is the longest-lived African dance company in Philadelphia and is dedicated to serving the community by presenting and preserving culture, dance and music of the African Diaspora. Kulu Mele's mission is met through high quality and authentic workshops, performances, residencies, apprenticeships and study tours that seek to reclaim traditional cultural practices, enable self expression, and liberate and build communities. Kulu Mele serves an estimated 25,000 people annually.

Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble has for more than 30 years been a vital driving force behind the African cultural renaissance in Philadelphia. The company presents African American dance traditions rooted in the cultures and aesthetic values of the African Diaspora, blending West African ancestral traditions and African American creativity. Kulu Mele draws on the musical and movement forms of Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, and the Senegambia region, as well as African American vernacular traditions including Hip-hop, Bop, Cha-cha, and Slop. Performances and workshops vividly convey to audiences (and especially to young people) both the artistic excellence in their midst and the meanings of dancing and drumming in the African and African Diasporan societies from which these traditions come. Vibrant dances are always presented with authentic and compelling costumes; choreography is developed by company members, and by master dancers and choreographers from home countries. Kulu Mele has kept the culture alive.

Awards

Kulu Mele has received some of the region's most prestigious awards and competitive grants including:

Founder Baba Crowder: Pew Fellowship in the Arts; Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, PCA Master Traditional Artist.

Artistic Director Dorothy Wilkie: Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Folk Arts Apprenticeship (numerous times), Leeway Foundation, and Independence Foundation. For her choreography for Lantern Theater Company, Ms. Wilkie was nominated for a Barrymore Award (2005).

The ensemble: support from the Dance Advance funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by Drexel University, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Philadelphia Cultural Fund. Individual ensemble members have also received support from Leeway and PCA.

Our funders and supporters

Kulu Mele is pleased to acknowledge the assistance of The Philadelphia Folklore Project, and to thank our funders:
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
PennPAT
Dance Advance, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts & administered by the University of the Arts
The Leeway Foundation
The Philadelphia Cultural Fund
The Samuel S. Fels Fund
New York Community Trust
The Stanley and Marion Bergman Fund
The National Endowment for the Arts Traditional Arts Growth Fund
The Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation
Independence Foundation
Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation
and the community at large.

Dorothy Wilkie, artistic director/choreographer of Kulu Mele.