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ABOUT THE ASASE YAA AFRICAN AMERICAN DANCE THEATER
Yao Ababio (master Djembe drummer and renowned choreographer founded The Asase Yaa African American Dance Theater in the summer of 2001, and has served as its Artistic Director ever since. His experience touring worldwide as a musician and his love for African art, music, and culture inspired him to establish Asase Yaa. Under his leadership, and with the addition of his brother, K. Osei Williams, Executive Director of the Asase Yaa Cultural Arts Foundation, the company has been revered as one of Brooklyn’s and the country’s most revered dance and drum companies. In 2010, the Foundation received its official certification as a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
For more than two decades, Ababio (director, choreographer, composer) and Williams (composer/writer/producer) have collaborated in presenting 18 original productions featuring dance and drums, including our most recent production, “It Was All Dream” (2022), which paid homage to their 20th Anniversary. They have also been a headliner in Asase Yaa’s Rhythm & Movement Festival for the past three years. In 2017, they shared their first Bessie Award with several other dance companies for their performance in Abdel Salaam’s play, “Healing Sevens, “which won for Outstanding Production. In addition, they were the first US-based African dance company in history to be nominated for the highly coveted Bessie Award for their production of “Djembe in the New Millennium” (2014).
The company earned its widespread popularity by delivering performances that fused high-throttle dynamics that are informed and reflective of the African aesthetic. They have consistently attracted and developed dancers, drummers, complementary musicians, singers, actors, and staging staff who share their commitment to discipline and excellence. More than 1000 performers have graced their stages, and they’ve collaborated with a couple of dozen of the most prestigious African dance companies in the nation. Many of their alumni have launched successful careers on Broadway and in other entertainment media, including actors Shahadi Wright-Joseph, Chinua Payne, and dancer/entertainer Vianka Winborne.
The African American Dance Theater ensemble, which has included a cast of 26 members and their Youth Ensemble, has been featured in 35 original, written, directed, and independently produced live productions. Their abbreviated ensembles (dancers and drummers) have also been featured as special guests for numerous corporate and private events, music festivals, and educational/interactive performances at elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the greater metropolitan area, totaling over 5,000 performances.
In recent years, an abbreviated company ensemble was featured as guest performers on an episode of the critically acclaimed NBC-TV drama series, “New Amsterdam” (2022). And the Youth Ensemble was a featured performer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s highly anticipated grand reopening of the revitalized and newly imagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which featured three collections – the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania – and over 1,800 works from five continents and hundreds of cultures (May 2024).
Other major guest appearances and performances by the company have included the VH1’s Hip Hop Honors Awards, the premiere of HBO’s “Sing Your Song” documentary about the life of Harry Belafonte (at the Apollo Theater), DanceAfrica New York, (several times at the Brooklyn Academy of Music), Dance Africa Chicago, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem, the Hazlett Theater, Pittsburgh, Symphony Space, Upper West Side, Manhattan, and the International African Arts Festival, Brooklyn. They have also performed worldwide in many countries, including Japan, Korea, France, the Netherlands, Iceland, Ghana, Guinea, and Angola, to name but a few.
In the university and collegiate arena, they have performed at New York University’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Long Island University’s Kumble Theater, and have also performed (or conducted workshops at) Arizona State University, Bucknell, Princeton, Scranton, Howard, and many others. For eleven years (2003-2014), they annually hosted and presented “Africa, A Journey in Dance.” The initial production presented at the York College Performing Arts Theater in Queens, NY, featured three companies from New York (representing Guinea, Ghana, and Senegal) and one from Washington, D.C. (Côte d’Ivoire & Guinea). The next six consecutive shows were also presented at the same theater.
