Mama Kariamu

Kariamu’s work as a dancer, choreographer, and educator seeks to tell stories, relate history, and retrieve myths, legends, and narratives that speak to the struggle and strengths of the African diaspora.  Also known lovingly as “Mama Kariamu,” she uses movement vocabulary that reflects and challenges oppression and injustice. Over 40 years ago, she developed the Umfundalai dance technique as a means to see and accept each other in the present moment. Since then, it has been the vehicle through which she creates, as it reflects her history, aesthetic, and heritage. Kariamu does a number of outreach programs a year, which have targeted women in prisons and teenagers at risk. Her work crosses generations and sheds light on the lives of marginalized people. 

Mama Kariamu will create and direct The Clothesline Muse, a multi-media performance that will shed light and attention on the live of women who worked six days a week to support their families. The Clothline Muse is the story of mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers that deals with women’s relationship to water, community and dreams. The performance will speak about community, women’s work and the beauty and pain of hard physical labor. Gathering stories from women representing different ages, Mama Kariamu will interview women in church groups, senior citizen homes, as well as younger women who will retell the stories of their mothers and grandmothers. The cast of six dancers and a storyteller will perform the memories that have been collected, using dance, music and visual arts. The Clothesline Muse will premiere at the Painted Bride in March 2013.