Adia Tamar Whitaker

San Francisco, CA
Adia Tamar Whitaker is one of the youngest professional choreographers and master teachers of Afro-Haitian folkloric dance in the United States. A former member of Blanche Brown’s Group Petit La Croix and Colette Eloi’s Reconnect, she has studied and performed Afro-Haitian dance in the U.S. and abroad for 13 years. Her artistic work focuses on neo-folklore of the African Diaspora, linking contemporary modern dance, original vernacular movement, and traditional dance theater. Recently Whitaker completed the first part of a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant in Ghana. Her new project combines dance, media and music inspired by “ampey,” a rhythmic game played by little girls in Ghana.

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Festival Weekend 1 Artist
Performing Nov 5-8, 8pm
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“Ampey!”
After teaching African Diaspora inspired “Neo-Folkloric” dance & music across the U.S. for 11 years, Adia Whitaker felt it was time to explore the connections between her African roots and her African American culture and embarked on a trip to Ghana. In her words: “Everywhere I went, people laughed, hid, pointed…” With short-cropped hair and a lighter skin tone than those around her, people labeled her a “white man” who danced and sang like an “African woman.” Her new work plays on the metaphor of “ampey,” a rhythmic competition game in Ghana in which two opponents try to catch each other off-guard. Through riveting ensemble dance, music and media, Whitaker explores her connection to Africa. “For 53 days, Ghana and I played ‘Ampey!’ I’m still trying to figure out who won.”

We are super excited to have had the opportunity to meet the truly kind and professional folks from the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Culture Wire. Watch the video below to hear from Jessica Robinson Love and 3 Performing Diaspora artists Gema Sandoval, Charlotte Moraga and Adia Tamar Whitaker talk about what Performing Diaspora meant to [...]

First there was a dungeon. Then there was a boat. We died. We survived. We got sick and never quite got better. All of us stayed behind thinking the others had been rescued. We found a way in through the skin and the hair, but haven’t found another way to talk about it since. Gunshots [...]

With Performing Diaspora fast-approaching, some of the artists took a break from the stage and headed over to KPFA’s radio studios in Berkeley for a musical sneak-preview of their work on Stephen Kent’s show, “Music of the World.” In between tracks, our Executive Director Jessica Robinson Love joined them in the conversation about their [...]

now and then
adia wrote: not heads, just faces april 13, 2009
In sidewalk cracks and florescent puddles, busted spindles stack grief and silence. Violent at the core a snake rises unraveling in a double helix born of war. A blank stare slips and falls into the wrong hands. Crimson bends black across corners in Brooklyn. The blood has [...]

ind (circle) –  the ghana blogs 2008 – (i feel you Colette!)
Where clear crabs slide sideways across broken seashells and glass, there is a magnificent tossing and turning. At night they sing saltwater mountains of rage and revolt, a stampede of white stallions trample screaming angels and choke a caterwauling into the sea. Like fire [...]

The Ewe say ” … you must cry into the song.” A man in the taxi said “… you are beautiful when you cry.” … But these things are not easy. To cry into the song when you are still so sad … To let your beauty shine thru when you feel as though there [...]

I didn’t get the memo. You know the one that breaks down the ways in which descendants of enslaved Africans have a different (but just as post traumatic stress disordered psychosis) than the descendants of colonized Africans. To be fair, I looked completely different when I’ve traveled abroad before (I had long hair), AND there [...]

middle (line)

Look fast. Move slow. The ground is on fire, but I don’t worry myself with that anymore. If I was at home I would ask if the fumes were toxic. Now, toxic is relative and intersections are the eye of the storm. In Ghana, ‘Nature’ is the holy book that tells people what to [...]

beginning (circle) kokou katamani

When I first formed my company, Ase Dance Theatre Collective, Kokou Katamani taught us a song. I’ll never forget that he came all the way from California just to perform in one of my pieces. I was a student at The Ailey School then and it was my first time living away from [...]

line
“the concepts that shape …” are where I’d have to begin … better yet, “SHAPE!” is where I’d have to begin if you REALLY want to talk about what we do as folklorists, performers, teachers, students etc.
This residency is an opportunity for us to build new models of discussion, exploration, and experimentation around folkloric based [...]