About
About
We invite you to join us for an exploration of Art, Movement, and Music, curated by the Hemispheric Institute’s first Folklorist in Residence, Aissatou Bey-Bara. This conversation and community dance circle reflects on the foundational influences and creative beginnings of African performance arts. It measures the long collective impact of African dance, visual arts, music and performance in a global diaspora – an impact that informs the Afro future. Panelists Aquah Tcherbu Beale, Januwa Moja, Amaniyea Payne, and Obara Wali Rahman King will discuss the power of the drum, of embodied performance, and the visual grandeur of African regalia. The panel will be followed by a movement workshop led by Amaniyea Payne and drummer Obayana Olumide.
This program is the culminating event of the series, “We Not New To This, We True To This”, curated by Archivist Camille Lawrence, at the Hemispheric Institute. Camille will moderate the event, which will be documented and preserved in the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL).
This is an in-person event. RSVP is encouraged but not mandatory. Please RSVP here.
Participants
Aissatou Bey-Bara
Aissatou Bey-Bara is a creator and cultural warrior known for community activism, folkloric knowledge, and iconic style! She lives with her family in Harlem—five generations strong—and participates in many community boards, promoting and directing cultural programming. Mama Aissatou has taught and spoken nationally and internationally, but her cultural journey began with Hati Ast Hasifa Abdur Rahman & Abdul Rahman in Harlem in the 1960s. She was the dance captain for the Weusi Umoja Dancers & Drummers, guided by the Onyango family collective in Baltimore. That collective then joined with the African Heritage Dancers & Drummers under the direction of Baba Melvin Deal in Washington, D.C.
Aissatou is a continuing Drum Song Society/Sabar Ak Ru Afriq African Dance Club member with Baba Obara Wali Rahman King and the late Mama Andara Koumba Rahman King. Aissatou has performed at Dance Africa with the company and continues as an elder with the Drum Song Society. In supporting the initiatives of the Drum Song Society, Aissatou aided in developing a collaboration on cultural projects with the then newly formed Department of Homeless Services to offer cultural programming to children living in temporary housing and supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Department of Human Resources, and the Board of Education.
Aissatou offers her experience and expertise in various cultural institutions across cultural communities nationally, including Hawaii, and has contributed internationally to the University of Ghana in Legon, West Africa, Senegal, and South Africa. She continues pursuing her cultural work as a Board Member of The Council of Elders for African Cultural Heritage and archival work in NYC as an active member of The Black Memory Workers Group.
As a Spring 2025 Folklorist in Residence at the Hemispheric Institute, Bey-Bara is curating a collection of her archival interviews with peer elder artists, scholars, and folklorists for the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL). Additionally, she is convening public programs both at NYU and in the community.
Aquah Tcherbu Beale
Bala (Balaphone), Digital Vibes, Percussions. Founding member of NM, Baba Aquah Tcherbu Beale plays balafon, marimba, vibraphone and assorted hand percussion instruments with Nubian Messengers. He has studied balafon with Famoro Djabate and studied vibraphone and marimba at Jazzmobile with Stefon Harris and Steve Nelson. He appears on the albums The Fiery Drum of Coster Mossamba, Musical Mosaic by The Princeton University Chapel; Chemical Pollution by PBR Streetgang, and Million Man Music by Songhai Djeli. Aquah also performs with Songhai Djeli and Sheps Hetep Ancestral Music.
Januwa Moja
Januwa Moja was born in Baltimore, Maryland and earned a BFA in Design and Fiber Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Ms. Moja’s work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History in New York City, and numerous other arts and educational institutions across the world. She has traveled extensively in Africa, and has exhibited her works in Brazil, Senegal, and London.
Through her work, Januwa has been known as a fiber artist for the past 53 years, and over the last ten years she has emerged as a glass assemblage and mosaic artist. Ms. Moja has created art and programs that seek to affirm the intrinsic values of culture. It is her desire to continue to create inspirational and healing powers through the arts and their ability to affect social change.
Amaniyea Payne
Amaniyea (Pamela) Payne for over fifty years have built an impressive career and is a viable artistic force in the field of dance and is recognized for her many talents in the global dance communities as dancer, singer, consultant, researcher, director, mentor, producer, choreographer, arts educator, costume designer, healer and humanitarian. Known to many in African Dance communities as a “national treasure,” Amaniyea has been the recipient of many awards, which speaks to her career achievements. Her style of dance evolves from natural rhythmic movements based on and is influenced by dances and cultures of the African Diasporas.
She has studied/trained, performed and toured globally with prominent companies and well-known music and dance legends, such as Stevie Wonder, Cab Calloway, Ben Harper, Bunny Wailers, Lindy-hop innovators Norma Miller, Frankie Manning, Momma Lou Parks, Mickey Davidson, Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, and The Old School to name a few.
Ms. Payne has collaborated with artists and organizations in the field of education, mentorship, cultural and performing arts, focusing on finding new ways to translate dance for the stage while preserving and respecting dance traditions.
Obara Wali Rahman King
Baba Wali was born in 1947 and has been involved in the performing arts since the age of three. As a child, he performed at Church socials and community and school talent shows, singing and dancing into his teen years. For the past 60 years, his focus has been in the realm of African traditional arts, drums, dance, music, and philosophy. Throughout his years as a Master Journeyman Artist, musician, choreographer, and artistic director, he has had the opportunity to study with many of the great masters of African music, drum, dance and spiritual science, as well as Black theater. Wali has always sought ways and means of bringing the light of that knowledge into our African American communities. He has written and directed several African choreo-dramas that have been produced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the DanceAfrica Festival, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and the Museum of Natural History, and has several recordings to his credit. He has made significant contributions to the development of DanceAfrica from its inception to the present, and has performed on national and international stages. For the past 35 years, he has been a distinguished member of the DanceAfrica Council of Elders. Baba Obara Wali Rahman Ķing brings over 55 years of teaching African drum, music, and dance experience to the table for the benefit of our communities.
Obayana Olumide
