Who We Are

Baba Robert Crowder (Founder and Director/Drummer)
Baba Crowder began drumming as a child in North Philadelphia in the late 1930s. Africa attracted him even then, and he sought out every opportunity to hear great drummers like Jean Leon Destine (Haiti), Chano Pozo and Desi Arnaz (Cuba), and Ladji Camara (Guinea). He began to to see commonalties between African music from different places, and began "searching for our lost heritage." He found ways to school himself, and began to study with percussionist John Hines after Hines had just finished a tour in Cuba with Katherine Dunham. In the 1940s-1960s, Crowder learned Haitian, Brazilian, and African drum traditions from native artists, including Ghanaian drummer Saka Acquaye, who was highly influential. (Crowder recorded an album with Acquaye in the 1960s that has recently been re-released by Nonesuch). In these years, Crowder also lived near and worked with many fine jazz musicians, including McCoy Tyner and John Coltrane. After the revolution in Cuba, Lazaro Prieto and his mother Rita, from Matanzas, arrived in Philadelphia; Crowder's education in music and culture deepened. Ms. Prieto was one of the people responsible for Crowder's enlightenment into the orisha world. One of the first African American drummers in Philadelphia to study batá drumming, Crowder has long been in the vanguard of an African cultural renaissance in Philadelphia. Several generations of African American dancers and drummers, both in Philadelphia and in New York, now trace their roots through him. He has received the region's most prestigious award for artists, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and awards from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. The Lee Cultural Center, where Kulu Mele has long taught and rehearsed, has a mural on its walls honoring Crowder.

Dorothy Wilkie (Artistic Director/Choreographer)
Dorothy began to pursue serious study of a wide repertoire of African and African Diasporan dance in 1955, approaching the genre as both an art form and (eventually) as an aspect of her spiritual practice as an orisha devotee and initiate. She gained a dance education primarily through regular attendance at dance and drumming conferences such as Kankouran, active participation in bembés, formal apprenticeships, self-guided study, and attendance at regular classes and workshops. She has pursued intensive study of Nigerian and Ghanaian dance with master drummer Robert Crowder, and with Saudah Bey, and has studied with Jackie Corley, James Marshall, Baba Ishangi, Xiomara Rodrigez (Afro-Cuban), Tenenfig Dioubate, M'Bemba Bangoura and Youssouf Koumbassa (Guinea) and others. She has also pursued formal study in Guinea with Les Ballets Africaine (2000), in Senegal with the National Dance Company of Senegal (2003), and in Cuba. She has performed with such ensembles as Chuck Davis, Nuevo Generacion, and Ilu Aiye. She choreographs Odunde's Hucklebuck to Hip-Hop productions featuring African American vernacular social dances like the Mambo, Bop, Slop, and the Cha-Cha - dances she excelled in growing up in North Philadelphia. Wilkie also choreographs the bulk of Kulu Mele's repertoire. She has choreographed for Lantern Theater Company and for African Rhythms at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2007, she was awarded a prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts for dance choreography.

John Wilkie (Musical Director/Drummer)
Wilkie started playing conga drums in the 1950s in high school in North Philadelphia. His first mentors and teachers were William Powell and Charles Brown, both noted percussionists among the first generation of Philadelphians to undertake extensive study of African and African Cuban hand-drum traditions. Later, Wilkie met Robert Crowder, and studied batá with him, as well as with Garvin Masseaux, master Cuban drummer Kikiyu (Enrique Admiral), and a circle of others. At this time, in the 1970s, Wilkie began as a member of the Kulu Mele African Dance Ensemble. While studying with Kikiyu he began drumming at bembes, spiritual gatherings, and workshops. He began studying under Kwesi (Darrell Burgee), learning djembe and West African drumming. In the early 1990s, Wilkie joined Jaasu Ballet. He has traveled to Guinea, Senegal, and Cuba for drum study. He has been a member of the Spoken Hand Drum Society and a Philadelphia Folklore Project artist in residence.

COMPANY MEMBERS

Dancers

• Alakee Bethea
• Daniele Bourget
• Tekeytha Amelia Fullwood
• Cachet Ivey
• Bryant Lee
• Acacia Reed
• Ama Schley
• Payin Schley
• Edward Smallwood
• Renelle Anansa Smith
• Fasina Wilkie
• James Ali Wilkie
• Tajah Sahar McDonald Williams
• Kia Holifield Wimmer

Musicians

• Kenneth Fauntleroy
• Omar Harrison
• Mathew Simon
• Gregory Jackson
• Ira Bond

 BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jazmyn Burton
Calabash Communications

Joseph Quinones, Chair
Orisa Community Development Corporation

Dorothy Wilkie
Kùlú Mèlé African Dance & Drum Ensemble

Fasina Wilkie, Interim Secretary
Kùlú Mèlé African Dance & Drum Ensemble

Kia Holifield-Wimmer
Ballard Spahr, LLP

STAFF

Dorothy Wilkie, Artistic Director
Nathea Lee, Managing Director
Acacia Reed, Program Manager
Venise Battle, Samuel Fels Fund Summer Intern