Founded in 1993 by ten daring
women of African decent, GIWAYEN
MATA's mission is "to celebrate the
lives of women and uplift our
communities and our planet, while
perpetuating the cultures of Africa
and the African Diaspora through the
study, creation, teaching, and
presentation of artistic media
including dances, rhythms, songs,
poetry, and prose around the world."
GIWAYEN MATA (pronounced ghee-wah-yen
mah-tah) is a Hausa term that means
"Elephant Women." It is the title
given to women who are leaders of
women’s organizations. GIWAYEN MATA
has been wowing audiences and
students of all ages, ethnicities
and backgrounds with drum and dance
classes, workshops, and performances
that are entertaining, energetic,
thought-provoking, empowering,
interactive, and educational.
Audiences from around the country
are often moved to their feet and
people speak enthusiastically about
how their experiences go beyond
movement, sight, and sound.
Individual members of the
ensemble have also performed and
taught in Germany, Haiti, England
and Ghana. GIWAYEN MATA performed in
DanceAfrica 2008 at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music, DanceAfrica
Chicago 2008, and DanceAfrica Dallas
2008 and 2009. The ensemble is
honored to have been included in the
2010 lineup for Wofabe. In giving
GIWAYEN MATA its first of three
Creative Loafing Best Of Atlanta
Awards for Best World Music Group,
critic Roni Sarig wrote, "to call
this all female group a band is a
severe understatement. They are more
like an event."
KowTeff is Brooklyn's leading community based African Diaspora
folkloric arts institution. For over
fifteen years, the company has used
arts to empower people of African
descent through education and
entertainment. The name
KowTeff, which means "coming from above" in Senegal's Wolof language,
fully describes the company's powerful and diverse arts
presentations. KowTeff trains
the over twenty member group of
dancers, drummers, singers, actors,
storytellers, and stilt walkers in a
wide variety of African, American
and Caribbean folk traditions. For
KowTeff, the arts are a tool for
healing the community and keeping
the values, principles, and customs
of African traditions alive.
Founded in 1992, KowTeff has
researched, taught and performed
African Diaspora Dance throughout
the Tri-State region and abroad. Co Founder and Artistic Director
Sewaa Codrington has over three decades of training and study with
internationally recognized master
traditional artists and African
griot families. KowTeff has educated and entertained thousands
of audience members with free
classes and community based
performances in underserved
communities such as Brownsville,
Crown Heights, East Flatbush, and
Bedford Stuyvesant. The company has
been invited to present on academic
panels for the Brooklyn Arts Council
and to conduct workshops for the
Department of Culture in St. Kitts. Today KowTeff is a duly incorporated
501c3 nonprofit organization
engaging capacity building efforts
to secure philanthropic support and
strengthen infrastructure so that
its work can continue into the future.
KowTeff achieves its mission
through two programs: A School
of African Dance that presents a
free weekly class held at public
spaces in Brooklyn and an African
Dance Company that presents
folkloric African Diaspora
traditions. Serving hundreds of
students and thousands of audience
members each year, KowTeff programs
enrich the cultural life of
communities by fostering self-awareness, pride,
self-determination, and community development.
Oyu Oro is the brainchild of Danys "La Mora" Perez - international Afro-Cuban folklore
performer, choreographer, teacher
and dance ethnologist from Santiago
de Cuba. The company is committed to
the preservation of Afro-Cuban
folklore as well as to encouraging
the cross-cultural understanding of
the dance and music forms derived
from African culture. While Oyu
Oro's traditional repertoire pays
tribute to African lineages derived
from the Yoruba, Congo, Carabali,
Arará and Dahomean cultures of West
Africa and Haiti, the popular dance
choreographies also celebrate the
national Cuban heritage.
In February 2007, Oyu Oro
presented the world premiere of
"Palenque," an epic poem in
Afro-Cuban folklore and the
company's first evening length work,
at La Mama Annex Stage. La Mora
assembled a gathering of seasoned
Afro-Cuban artists in America,
including 20-plus New York-based
dancers, vocalists and musicians.
This unprecedented two-week event
was greeted with rave reviews and
sold-out audiences. Since then, Oyu
Oro has premiered several
presentations, which include "Tributo"
during Heritage Sunday at the
Lincoln Center Out of Doors in
August 2009, "Ceremonial de la Danza"
during the Chase Latino Cultural
Festival at Queens Theatre in July
2009, "Maferefun" at Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis High School in
November 2008, "Raices y Estampas
Cubanas" at LaGuardia Performing
Arts Center in Queens in October
2008 and "Cubaila" during the Fourth
Annual CubaCaribe Dance and Music
Festival in San Francisco in April
2008. Since 2009, Oyu Oro was
selected to be one of the key
members of the artist rosters
represented by the Center for
Traditional Music and Dance.
Oyu Oro aspires to create a work
that will serve as an informational
tool for the
researchers in the academic field as
well as a source of enjoyment for
audiences of all ages and
multicultural backgrounds who seek a
greater development of "art among
people."
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AfricaShipments.com presents
WOFABE 2010
Fifth Annual
African Dance & Drum Festival
Sponsored by Umoja Dance Company
November 13, 2010
Newark Symphony Hall
1020 Broad Street, Newark, New Jersey
