P. Amaniyea Payne has built an impressive thirty year career as a dancer, choreographer and teacher working in Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago. For the last twenty years, she has devoted her attention to her role as Artistic Director of Chicago's Muntu Dance Theatre, where she has been the principal architect of the company's technical growth, expanded repertory and national reputation.
Payne's mission is to preserve the traditions of Black Dance, and even more specifically, African-Centered movement. She began her training in Baltimore, Maryland at Morgan State with Orville Johnson, Lonetta Gaines and Aissatou Bey. She continued her studies in Washington, D.C. with Melvin Deal at the African Heritage Center and in New York with the Olatunji African School of Dance and with Baba Chief James Hawthorn Bey. These studies were instrumental in the style she has evolved, centered in natural rhythmic movements based in and informed by traditional African dance and movement of the African Diaspora, with an emphasis on the Caribbean, as well as traditional jazz and dance theater. Other influences include traditional jazz dance, lindy and swing and Brazilian dance as it emerged in New York in the late 1970s.
The roster of dance artists that Payne has studied with is extensive: ranging from pioneering African dance troupes such as the National Dance Company of Senegal, international Afrikan-American Ballet, Ballet D'Afrique Noire De Toubacouta and Djolibah & Les Ballet Africans from Guinea, along with seminal African dance artists such as Baba Ishangi Razak, Djibril Gueye, Assane Konte, Abdullah Camara and Arthur Hall. African American dance experts include the legendary Frankie Manning, Micki Davison, Lenwood Sloane, Pepsi Bethel and Norma Miller. Payne has also studied and worked with dance artists from Costa Rica, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba and South Africa. She received a special grant in 2006 to travel and study in Brazil.
Among her extensive engagements as a performer, Payne has danced with the African Heritage Dancers and Drummers, the Orville Johnson Dancers, International African American Ballet and Solaris Congolese Ensemble. She has toured with productions of Cab Calloway, Stevie Wonder, Sweet Saturday Night and Norma Miller Jazz Dancers in addition to featured artist spots in theater productions in New York, Jamaica, Washington DC and Epcot Center, Florida, and a touring production through the US and the UK. She has collaborated with international artists as diverse as United Africa, Chief Bey, Drums of Freedom, Rita Marley, dub poet Mutuburaka, Mamma Tonge, South Africa's Thuli Dumakade and for the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. She danced m national and international competition in Lindy-hop championships, won the 1982 Harvest Moon Ball Championship and was selected to represent the USA in the 1983 Rock N Roll Competition for Lindy-Hop in Hamburg, Germany.
Her teaching credits include countless classes and workshops, including Jacob's Pillow, Bath Dance Works, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, Morning Dance Center, Bates Dance Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Colorado Dance Festival, various university-based dance Programs, with arts education programs at Urban Gateways and Old Town School of Folk Music, Duke Ellington Arts High School in Washington, DC, residency programs for Chicago Public Schools and for numerous African dance companies and festivals throughout the US .
Payne began creating dances early in her career, working independently and with various dance companies. She was tapped to choreograph the production ''Black Heroes and the Hall of Fame,'' which later toured the US and England, - the restaging of Oscar Brown Jr.'s award winning musical ''The Great Nitty Gritty.'' Her most extensive efforts have been devoted to Muntu African Dance Theater, where annually she has created themed programs of new works and restaged traditional African dances for over 15 years. Standout works include: ''TransMigrations, performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2002; "Ancient Echoes calling" which pays homage to the blues; Dances of Soul, which included collaborations with Mickey Davidson and Oscar Brown Junior; ''Ole Time Religion'' from 1991's ''Lighting the Path'' concert, with a cameo by Baba Chief Bey; and the remounting of Arthur Hall's celebrated ''Fat Tuesday and All that Jazz'' which included the live performance of New Orleans' legendary Olympia Brass Band, led by Milton Batiste. These works have been performed primarily in Chicago at the Katherine Dunham Theater at Kennedy King College, at the Harris Theater of Music and Dance and at Navy Pier's Stage, as well as on touring stages nationally.
Amaniyea Payne has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts for challenge grants, choreographers' study and the dance overview proposal reviews. She is included in dance documentaries produced by Nippon Television (Japan NY), by the BBC and appeared on the Today Show wit h Regis in NY.
Among her awards, Payne has received the prestigious Ruth Page award two times, in 1994 for Dance Achievement and in 2001 for Lifetime Service. She was honored by the Black Theater Alliance in 1998 and the African American Arts Alliance for the Black Excellence Award in 2004.
(bio care of www.muntu.com)
Check out these VIDEOS of Amaniyea and Muntu Dance Theatre:
Reflections from Amaniyea (click here)
Muntu Dance Theatre Performing "Ayos Dream" (click here)
