Repertoires

Terrestrial Wombs

Since the dawn of an age when the moon and time were one, the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers have been known by artists and scientists, poets and priests alike as symbols of the wombs of life on earth. From their watery matrix sprang forth many of the myths, legends, manifestations and womb-manifestations of creation. Terrestrial Wombs embraces the essences of Her power, fluidity and grace as She sources us with the rhythms, currents and cycles of being.

A Question of Modesty

We journey to a small village in West Africa during the time of the Middle Passage where the religions Of Islam and Christianity imprint a different construct of modesty onto traditional societies and their indigenous belief systems. Program Information 2005 Choreography, Costume,Musical Direction, Set and Light Design: Abdel R. Salaam

…B Flowin’…B Smoove!

Oscillatory in the design of it’s language, “…B Flowin’, . . . B Smoove!” seeks to be a visual metaphor for the elliptical movement of life in the heavens and here on Earth. Inspired by the dynamic, fluid, never ending flow of energy from Supreme Being that animates all, the mythical Damballah and Aida Ouedo, […]

LEGACY II: CULT OF THE WOLVES

In this story, we are witnesses young Pochteca warriors being initiated into the cult of the coyotli-naualt after the “ancient” foreign rite of circumcision was given to help them “remember” and never forget the ways of part of their ancestral line. * After the space had been blessed by their Aztec cousins and an ancestral figure of a not to distant past, the newly reborn young men began to give their attentions to the young women, who by flirtation acknowledged their eligibility based upon their rite of passage.

AXIS: Temples of Ice

AXIS: Temples of Ice exalts the elemental powers of snow and ice in their role as “protectors of the planet”, especially in the polar region s of the north and the south. Arctic life, science, myth and the primal elements of wind and water drive the vision of this work as it ultimately comments on the […]

The Mud Below

THE MUD BELOW explores the theme of transformation through three mythical reptiles: Ojise, the Yoruba chameleon; El Cocqui, the Taino tree frog and Quezacoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent. As we examine the primal beginnings of magic, religion, and culture, we often find our African and Native American ancestors exalting the powers of animals in nature […]

Rhythm Tree

The life of a forest depends upon the strength, power and flexibility of each of its trees and their roots. These trees yield children of ripened fruit whose dance with the wind, the rain and the sun enables their seeds to join the earth once again as they take root.  Thus, new life may spring […]

E.R.

E.R. illustrates the almost “surgical” dismembering of Mr. Salaam’s mother’s life during her tenure in an emergency room hospital as she oscillates through the roles of caregiver, patient, healer and the infirmed.

The Word Made Flesh

“The Word Made Flesh” examines the struggle of a man as he battles with his passion for the nonviolent message of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Nationalist Revolutionary message of El Haj Malik Shabaz, Malcolm X.

TUT

This is the Story of the murder of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the last of the royal line at the close of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty; it is also the story of the eventual discovery of his treasure-filled tomb, some 3,000 years later, by the British archeologist, Howard Carter. It’s a tale of passion, betrayal, and revenge… But […]