Exhibit Opening – African Americans and the Arts
February 9 @ 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
| $10Exhibit Opening!
You’re Invited!
Black History Month – African Americans and the Arts
Makeda Kumasi
February 9, 2024 – Exhibit Open House – Doors open at 6:30 pm
Featuring Special Guest Makeda Kumasi. Makeda is a performer, dancer, storyteller, noted speaker and lecturer, teacher and much more.
Cost – $10, but no one will be turned away
Museum Exhibit Hours: Thursdays Thru Sundays 10:00 am – 4:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Thru March 31, 2024
Makeda is from San Bernardino and is a dancer, storyteller and much more. She will mystify us with one of her original stories. Makeda has previously released a CD, “A Spoken Word Experience.” Along with her spoken word stories, Makeda will also be playing an African instrument at our opening.
Sponsors of “The Urban Djali Tour”
Biography
Makeda Kumasi is the founder of WE 3 PRODUCTIONS, as well as the co-founder and artistic director of The Umoja Ensemble of the Inland Empire. She attended CalArts before receiving her B.A. in Communications from Cal State, Fullerton, and her M.F.A in Theater from the University of Southern California. She also possesses an MA in Elementary Education, and is a wife, mother of three children, and a caregiver for her mother.
Along with being a featured performer on stage and T.V., Kumasi has danced for two prominent Southern California based African dance ensembles, Abalaye African Dancers; an Orange County Arts Group, and Niancho Eniyaley African Performers. Kumasi has been featured on MTV’s Starting Over, BET’s Fly Poet, and the first season of So You Think You Can Dance?, as well as several independent films and theater projects.
Kumasi is a University of California, Riverside Continuing Lecturer in the Department of Dance, as well as a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Theater, Film and Digital Production, where she directed and choreographed productions of Marisol by José Rivera and Little Shop of Horrors by Howard Ashman. Kumasi is also an adjunct professor in the Performing Arts Department at Long Beach City College (LBCC).
Recently, Kumasi received the 2023 Living Cultures Grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts as a Culture Bearer, as well as being one of 26 individual artists to receive a California Arts Council grant through Creative Corps Inland Empire to be the lead artists in the production of a yearlong performing arts project titled “Dancing with the Leaders of the Inland Empire”.
In Summer of 2021 she released her first wide release album, A Spoken Word Experience including music videos for the tracks Maat and Electricity which can be found on most major digital music platforms and YouTube. Kumasi is expanding the tour of her multimedia show, Urban Djali Tour which is based on the album. The Urban Djali Tour show features various dance genres, original video, photography, and paintings, as well as music from West African instruments that Kumasi plays, including a 21 string Malian instrument called the kora.
NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON by Makeda Kumasi:
12 Days in Senegal… A short travel memoir for the avid reader. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=12+Days+in+Senegal&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A12+Days+in+Senegal
I See Hip Hop Afrika… A poetry picture book the entire family can enjoy. http://www.amazon.com/I-See-Hip-Hop-Afrika/dp/1514413922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454530277&sr=8-1&keywords=I+See+Hip+Hop+Afrika