Dr. Baba Chuck Davis
Honorary Chairperson and Host

Dr. Baba Chuck Davis, a native North Carolinian, is Founder and Artistic Director of the African American Dance Ensemble and the New York-based DanceAfrica. He attended Howard University and majored in Theater/Dance and continued his studies in African dance under the guidance of Babatunde Olatunji, Eleo Pomare, and the Bernice Johnson Dance Company. His growing reputation as one of the foremost and accomplished choreographers and teachers in the traditional techniques of African dance, compelled the American Dance Festival of Durham, NC, to recruit him for the position of Artist-in-Residence and to head up its outreach program. His desire to reach the young people of Durham who shared his enthusiasm and discipline for dance, was the fountainhead from which sprung the African American Dance Ensemble. He has nurtured and led the Ensemble on a course to become one of the truly premier dance companies of any kind touring the nation today.

Dr. Davis keeps a full schedule including appearances with the Ensemble, guest artist directorships, choreographer assignments, and research and travel excursions to Africa and international points. He is the founder and facilitator of the Cultural Arts Safari, which makes an annual pilgrimage to the continent of Africa.

Dr. Davis has been a panelist for several programs of the NEA. Since 1991 he has served as a Governor-appointed member of the Board for the North Carolina Arts Council where he chairs the Dance panel. In 1992, he was the recipient of the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts for his impressive and unique contribution to African American culture. This is the highest honor the state can bestow in the Arts. Dr. Davis is a recipient of the NY Bessie Award and the very prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music Award for distinguished service to the arts world and beyond. In December of 1998, he received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Medgar Evers College of New York.

Dr. Davis was recognized by the Dance Heritage Coalition as one of the first 100 Irreplaceable Dance Treasures in the United States. In February 2002 he was presented The Advocacy Award in recognition of dedication and commitment to Civil Rights advocacy, especially on behalf of People with Developmental Disabilities, by the Durham Human Relations Commission. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus awarded Dr. Davis with a citation for his years of distinguished service, loyalty and commitment to the arts as well as lauding him as a foremost, distinguished and accomplished choreographer and teacher in the traditional techniques of African American Dance. Dr. Davis has been selected Artist of the Year by DanceUSA. He has also received the 2002 National Governor’s Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts. The City of Durham declared August 5, 2002 as Chuck Davis Day in recognition of his accomplishments and contributions to the arts. North Carolina Dance Alliance has chosen Dr. Davis as the recipient of their 2002 award in recognition of his years of dedication to the advancement of dance in North Carolina, the nation, and the world.

M’Bemba Bangoura

M‘Bemba began drumming at a very young age while in his homeland of Guinea, West Africa. He began to learn the traditional music and dance styles of his village before he was old enough to be in school, and it has remained the primary focus of his life to this day. By the age of fourteen he had displayed such a high level of skill and artistry that he was invited to join the city ballet, The Ballet of Conakry, in the national capital, where he later became lead drummer.

After seven years with the city ballet, M’bemba became a master drummer and was invited to play for Ballet Djoliba, the most widely recognized and respected ballet in the country at the time. He worked side by side with master drummer Mamady Keita.

In 1988, he established his first company, Africa Soli. Two years later he traveled to the United States and helped to establish Fareta School of Drum and Dance in New York. In 1992 he co-founded the Les Ballet Bagata with master dancer Youssouf Koumbassa.

He has recorded two solo CDs, Wali and Fanji. M’Bemba Bangoura continues today sharing his talent by teaching weekly drum and dance classes in New York City to students young and old. He also recently produced and released his third music CD, WOFABE, a vibrant and exhilarating masterpiece.

Sista Jewel Conteh

Sista Jewel Conteh began a personal quest at the age of 18 that led her to study the works of prolific historians such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Asa Hilliard, Dr. Ben, and Chancellor Williams (to name a few). As a part her study of African Culture, she felt that learning African dance would bring her studies to life. She was always a dancer, at 16 she formed her first rapper/dancing/singing group and performed in major talent shows throughout Cleveland.

She was eventually introduced to Linda Thomas-Jones, the founder of the Imani Company in Cleveland. After studying for just a few months, she accompanied a friend to Detroit to audition for Omowale (led by the late Sundiata Keita), in which they were both invited to tour nationally. Her studies expanded quickly and she was introduced to students of Papa Camara from New Orleans, who taught her many things about African culture and dance. This period led to a new life mission, to learn and know as much about her ancestral culture and to share it with young people from similar backgrounds as hers.

Sista Jewel was raised by a grandmother who was a former sharecropper, and the second child born to a teenage parent. Although she had a praying grandmother, she still made bad choices, ending up in jail for a year at the age of 15. She could have blamed this on her environment, her lack of a father, or the streets, but God blessed her to see this as an opportunity to begin a journey to find creative/positive ways to change her conditions.

She now teaches dance, music and culture from this same perspective. Understanding the power of the arts firsthand, Sista Jewel teaches inner-city youth to be great through the dance and culture. Traveling from the east side of Cleveland to West Africa five times and being able to take her all of her children to Africa, is a testament that God can do anything once we give our lives to Him. She graduated Cum Laude in 2007 from Cleveland State University in a personally designed major: "African Dance in Urban America". She also earned a minor in Black Studies and Cultural Anthropology. She is currently working on a Masters in Educational Research in which she wants to highlight some of the ways that African Dance is positively affecting communities throughout the U.S. She is the Founder/Director of African Soul International, the proud mother of Afrika, Sesa, Sanu, Isatu and Neneh and wife of Karamo Conteh.

She is humbled to be able to show the work of the phenomenal youth that she has been blessed to work with, and hopes they see this opportunity as another step in their ladder towards greatness in their lives; and that when they arrive, they should not forgot those who are coming behind them.

Ciru Karanja

Ciru Karanja RYT, rolled out a mat in her first Vinyasa yoga class in 1997, and hasn’t stopped practicing since. In 2001, she became a certified Yoga Siromani Teacher through the International Sivanada Ashrams. For eight years, Ciru has been privileged to teach in NJ studios and as a private instructor. She served a year as assistant to Jyoti Crystal at Starseed, spent two years as the yoga director at Aspen East Fitness, and initiated the presence of “power yoga” at the Montclair YMCA. At Lotus, she taught the Yoga for Teens Summer camp with director Jennifer Kohl, as well as the pre-teen yoga class for three years. She has presented yoga workshops and demonstrations for Montclair State, Rutger’s Newark, NY Nick’s Dancers and Gaiam.

Ciru trained as a dancer and performer, studying as a teen at Gallman’s Newark Dance Theater, Montclair High’s School of Performing Arts, and as a dance major at Virginia Commonwealth University. She studied modern and African dance in NYC, and performed with Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, and Karen Love’s Umoja Dance Company. While studying yoga, she worked as a personal trainer after becoming a Certified Fitness Instructor through Marymount Manhattan College.
Recently, Ciru graduated from Montclair State University with a B.S. in Health Education, Public Health concentration, where she was awarded the 2009 Award for Excellence in Health Education. As an intern for Mountainside Hospital’s Mind/Body Program, designed the “Yoga for Healthy Hearts” program as well as providing support for other complimentary and community health events.

Ciru is thankful for the many teachers and lineages of spiritual and movement arts that have informed her practice. Through this inspiration, Ciru has developed a versatile, light-hearted yoga style that infuses traditional poses, creative flowing movement, and attention to individual process. Her classes are enhanced by music, with a fun mix of familiar and foreign tunes to motivate the practice. Om Shanti!

Assane Konte

Assane Konte, a national of Senegal, West Africa, is the Founder and Artistic Director, Choreographer, Costume Designer for KanKouran West African Dance Company. Mr. Konte began his dance training at age 12, and studied with many prominent traditional dancers and musicians throughout West Africa. These teachers/mentors, born in Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, and Senegal, were key to his development as a multi talented artist. His career as a professional dancer began at age 15 with the "Ballet Africaine de Diebel Guee" of Dakar, Senegal. During his ten years with the company, he electrified audiences with his performances, while simultaneously developing his own movement style. In 1978, following a tour in Cote d'Ivoire where he worked and performed as a guest consultant for a locally-based dance company, Mr. Konte came to the United States to pursue a career as an independent performer and worked with numerous organizations, as musical arranger, and choreographer.

Subsequently, Mr. Konte's realization that he needed to develop his own dance company in order to accomplish his ultimate goal of introducing traditional African dance and drumming to wider audiences in the U.S. led him in 1983, along with his colleague, Mr. Abdou Kounta, master drummer from Senegal, to found the KanKouran dance company, Mr. Konte assumed the responsibilities of Artistic Director of the company. Since that time, his lifelong dedication to preserving and sharing Africa's rich culture through dance and music has made him a goodwill ambassador, promoting cross cultural appreciation and understanding in the many performance venues in which he and the company appear. For his tireless work, innovative choreography, and outstanding contribution to the community, Mr. Konte has been the recipient of several prestigious awards which include the Immigrant Lawyers Association's "Immigrant of the Year" award (along with other recipients including Madeleine Albright, Placido Domingo, and Abe Polin), and an award for "Outstanding Community Service" presented by WGMS, one of the most popular classical music radio stations in Washington, D.C.

In addition, Mr. Konte's awareness of African dance as a universal language has allowed him to reach out to other artistic traditions. As a result, KanKouran has performed with symphony orchestras, chorales, church based dance groups, tap- dance companies, ballet companies, theatrical productions and other drum and dance companies from around the world.

His choreography and costume designing have enhanced not only KanKouran's stage professionalism, but numerous local and national dance companies as well. Through his careful and meticulous choreography, Mr. Konte has taken U.S. based African dance to another level: at the same time he has challenged his company's dancers and drummers to achieve impressive levels of virtuosity and technical ability. Although Mr. Konte choreographs primarily for his own company, his ingenious creativity and spirit is always in demand at home and abroad. Consequently, he conducts programs in Poland, Hawaii, Japan, and St. Croix. Mr. Konte has held faculty positions in the dance department at several prestigious universities in the Washington, D.C. area, including American and George Mason Universities, and presently serves on the faculty at Howard University.

Youssouf Koumbassa

Youssouf Koumbassa is a former artist of Ballet Djoliba, the National Ballet of Guinea. Born and raised in Guinea, West Africa, Youssouf began dancing at the age of six by studying and emulating the members of the National Ballet and the leading dancers of the many local and regional dance companies in Guinea. Youssouf's father is from the Landuma people and his mother from the Baga/Susu people.

In Guinea he studied under Sekouba Camara, Artistic Director of Ballet National Djoliba, and also with Kemoko Sano, the acclaimed Artistic Director of Les Ballets Africains, developing his talents as a dancer, musician and choreographer.

In thirteen years with the Ballet National, Youssouf traveled extensively throughout West Africa, Japan, Bangladesh, India, Holland, Hungary, Russia, Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Since moving to the United States twenty years ago, Youssouf has established himself as the pre-eminent teacher of dance from Guinea, and travels throughout the world as a much sought after master teacher at conferences, workshops, camps and schools. When at home in New York his classes are attended by a large and loyal following who are appreciative of his mercurial energy and grace.

In the 1990s Youssouf formed Les Ballets Bagata, comprised of sixty dancers and drummers. Performances by this company were spectacular mélanges of traditional culture and dance theater. Children of Bagata, a company he formed later, consisted of fifteen young dancers and musicians. Youssouf's mission has been and continues to be the exposure of the rich and varied cultures of Guinea to audiences around the world.

In his attempts to bring the energy, excitement and history of African dance to a wide audience, Youssouf is meticulous in acknowledging the source of this material and insists on a high level of understanding and respect for the form among his students. He travels to Guinea regularly, taking students on dance trips and returns to the United States with the latest developments in contemporary dance so that his teaching is always a mixture of traditional work and the dances that infuse popular culture.

Youssouf is happy to announce the release of "Landouma Fare", a dynamic 75 minute dance travelog/documentary, in which he travels home to Guinea on a personal journey to learn the dances of his father's Landouma people. Youssouf has created a series of instructional DVDs Wongai Vol 1 + Wongai Vol 2, in which he demonstrates both the music and dance of a wide selection of ethnic groups from Guinea. He has also produced an edited version of the famous concert by his exuberant dance company "Les Ballets Bagata" in NYC.

La Mora

Originally from Santiago de Cuba, Danys Perez "La Mora" is yet another great artist from the marvelous world of Afro-Cuban folklore. La Mora is one of the best interpreters of the forms of Afro-Cuban dance that are derived from the Yoruba, Congo, Carabali, Arara, and Dahomeyan cultures of West Africa.

As a dance performer, teacher, dance ethnologist, and choreographer, La Mora has focused on the unique styles of her native region of "Oriente Province" in Eastern Cuba. Oriente offers a particularly rich cultural heritage due to the introduction of Afro-Haitian influences to an already vibrant Afro-Cuban context. She excels in the interpretation of dances from this heritage including: Gaga, Vodu, Tajona, Haitian Bembe, Tumba Francesa, Carabali, as well as the popular dances Rumba, Comparsa (Conga), Chancletas (Cutaras), Haitian Merengue and Son Montuno, Son Urbano, and Casino.

La Mora was born in Santiago de Cuba where she began dancing at the early age of seven years old. She joined the amateur dance group Afro-Cuban Movements at ten, paving the way to her membership in the Afro-Haitian folklore ensemble Guilermon Moncada. At the age of 13, she began working as a guest dancer of the National Folkloric Ballet CUTUMBA, an opportunity that allowed her to participate in international festivals at age 15. After graduating as a Financial Media Technician at sixteen, she remained under contract with CUTUMBA for 17 years. Simultaneously, she joined the Centro de Superacion Arts School, where she studied Afro Cuban-Folklore with international personalities such as O’Farrell, Johann Garcia, Silvina Fabar, Lazaro Ross, Juan B. Castillo, and Ernesto Arminan. At this school she also studied Modern Technique with Eduardo Rivero Walker, and with Principal Dancers Aristides and Mariano.

In 1994 she was evaluated as Primera Bailarina and Primera Profesora by the National Dance Commission in Cuba, an organization whose roster includes such great exponents of Cuban Dance as Manolo Micler, Principal Choreographer for the Folklorico Nacional de Cuba and Cristy Dominguez, Primera Bailarina Choreographer of the Ballet of National Cuban Television. In 1993, while she was still dancing with Cutumba, she founded her own dance company, Adiro Omode, for children ages 4 to 15 in Santiago de Cuba. Since 1995, La Mora has taught outside of Cuba – in Italy, Spain, France, Canada, and the United States. In 1998, La Mora was the founder of another dance company, the original Oyu Oro, with professional and amateur dancers which was also based in Santiago de Cuba.

Since 2004, La Mora has been a permanent resident of the U.S., living in New York City. She had taught venues such as Djoniba Dance and Drum Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Reebok Sports Club, and is currently teaching at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (The Ailey Extension). In 2005, she established the New York-based group, Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Folklore Experimental Dance Ensemble, with local dancers of multicultural backgrounds. Danys Perez Prades "La Mora" is an international artist who offers a profound contribution not only to the dance world, but to the world of cultural studies as a whole.

Mangue Sylla

Born in Conakry, Guinea, West Africa, Mangue Sylla started playing music at the age of 10. Sangban being his first and favorite instument, he learned from some of the best teachers and performers from Lamine Bayo, Kanda, Lancey to Numudi. He soon became a professional musician and began working at "Jean Paul 2" Children School for six years as a Sangban player. Among other great performances, they went to Togo for a festival and won the first prize.

In 1993, he joined "Les Merveilles de Guinee." The well-known ballet troupe provided opportunities to allow him to travel throughout Africa, studying under the leadership of Kemoko Sano.

In 1998, he moved to the U.S. with the same ballet. Since then he has been working with numerous dance companies like Marylin's Bamdulaye (for one year) and Nandy's Sankofa Kuumba Cac (summer program for children).

Now Mangue Sylla lives in New York City, still an active member of "Les Merveilles de Guiness," teaching Sangban, Dundun, and Djembe classes, attending workshops, dance conferences, and available for performances.