upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Director Dorothy Wilkie has danced professionally for 40+ years. Early on, she was drawn to African dance and imagined herself an African dancer. By her early teens, she was studying with local dancers and drummers in the vanguard of reclaiming African and Diaspora music and culture in Philadelphia. In the 1970s, she began dancing with Kulu Mele, working closely with founder Robert Crowder and her creative and life partner, John Wilkie. Eventually, she took on the roles of choreographer and Artistic Director for Kulu Mele, and has led the company in these capacities for more than thirty years. Ms. Wilkie has pursued serious study of Afro-Cuban and West African dance, developing repertoire and approach through intensive and long-running work with artists including Baba Ishangi, Arthur Hall, Assan Konte, M'Bemba Bangoura, Marie Basse, Eartha Kitt, Moustapha Bangoura, Assane Konte, Enriqué, Adamo Admiral, Orlando Puntilla Rios and many others. She has performed as a member of Combaye, Nueva Generacion and Jaasu Ballet, and with Chuck Davis and others in a wide variety of settings. She considers herself a traditionalist, but likes to stay current, and has brought in contemporary choreographers to work with Kulu Mele. She was early to embrace hip hop, mixing it with Yankadi and other dances. In 2007, she was awarded a Leeway Transformation award for art and social change, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for choreography. Her most recent choreographed work, Ogun & the People, premiered in November 2019 as the company’s 50thanniversary show. It was developed through a study residency with Cutumba, in Santiago, Cuba, for members of Kulu Mele. Ms. Wilkiesays that it was a dream come true in many ways. “If I didn’t do anything else. . . I took them to Africa and Cuba. I put a lot of things on the table for them to eat