On July 28th 2018, members of the DATI theater production celebrated with hearts full of pride and joy, a milestone in their 41st year of existence, at the Ibrahim Theatre in Philadelphia. Calm and resilient energy surged the room as the African Romance Drama, “Love for Mymah” concluded, culminating both a commanding story but also a deep love for the location of the story’s center, the Republic of Liberia. Leaving the audience with a pure desire for more storylines that couple land with humanity and the need to protect and respect both.
Under today’s current political climate, where there are systemic efforts being made to marginalize and displace different communities, many conversations are being had around understanding how race, ethnicity, nationality, politics, and education all have intersectional impacts in our lives, and require intentional work to liberate people.
While so many of us have often recognized the false, stereotypical narratives about black and brown, indigenous and migrating communities that dehumanize us and our powerful history, there are also those working against to offer inspiration and upliftment.
Joseph Gbaba leads that work here in Philadelphia, as the Executive Director of the Dehkontee Artists Theatre, Inc. (DATI), a African-centered educational and cultural production organization that promotes African culture and history globally, providing afrocentric aesthetics and culture to its audiences through groundbreaking storytelling. The St. Joseph’s University graduate works to restore what he recognizes as a deep void in afro-centered history in the U.S., and a disconnect between communities from all across the African Diaspora who have settled into American Culture but have been robbed of their history and power as a people.
“So, like millions of African American kids who have never visited the Motherland of their ancestors (Africa), my grandchildren born and living in the United States may also be affected by the cultural and educational genocide that disconnects them from their African roots
through the educational system of the United States because not much is taught about African history and culture in most American schools other than stereotypical topics related to slavery and the dehumanization of the Black Race!
The retired civil servant of the city of Philadelphia, believes that the importance in this work is deeply connected to the city’s history and development as a state home for those migrating from different communities from African, Asian, South American, Australian, European, and so on, and hold a special uniqueness as a Sanctuary City for those seeking safety and refuge. While this provides communities with the support they need in creating new stability and lifestyles it doesn’t however account for the lack of discourse and art reflected in their communities and requires an intentional outlet.
““The City opens its doors to immigrants from around the world. I remember two decades ago when I fled the barbaric Liberian Civil War and landed in Philadelphia and Philadelphians warmly welcomed me and my family …. sadly, my grandkids have never visited Liberia before and they may not any time soon due to the security situation in Liberia where Liberian warlords are still holding the citizens hostage politically and economically.”
Gbaba drives the DATI organization in replenishing both general production and programming, that also include youth specific spaces in providing curriculums that replenish generational history lost from the Transatlantic slave trade, to chattel slavery, genocide, and providing through the arts what he identifies as “cultural esteem.”
This year, DATI connected this need for culturally cognizant art with their currently themed Gala presentation of “National Peace and Reconciliation in Liberia,” Love for Mymah commemorates the 250,000 lives lost during the Liberian Civil War and centers in the traditional Vai village called Jundoo in Western Liberia.
A fictional tale about the strong love bond between the Kru Prince Jebro of Seklaykpor and his charming Vai Princess Mymah of Jundoo. The two Liberian royals represent two distinct linguistic groups in Liberia. A story written 41 years ago, staged for the first time in entirety. It was first introduced by DATI production in 1977 at the open house ofDehkontee Artists Theatre at the Tubman Hall Auditorium on the Capitol Hill Campus of the University of Liberia in 1977. Staying true to its history, analyzes through its characters the implications of a independent nation and its people divided by war and conflict.
Its writing includes a Afrocentric, cultural tone, and centralizes traditional African cultural beliefs and customs, within the story while at the same time provides literature that can be read and/or taught in schools as an Afrocentric literacy material, with a complimentary a special theatrical style that inculcates traditional African music, dance and choreography in the overall production concept.
“Love for Mymah” provides a general outlook of traditional Liberian/African life in the village setting, as well as the cultural and religious beliefs, norms, mores of the Liberian people, and connects deeply to the intersections of between identity and culture, in a way, that audiences can connect to vastly. It draws out the important role that both artists and educators have in connecting learning and creative expression to inform and reshape how students learn in a way that centers who they are in the curriculum and removes the Eurocentric lens often enforced in learning spaces and normalized in classrooms across America.
“Therefore, there is a dire need not only to include African studies in the curriculum that drives the instruction of Black and Hispanic or other minority kids, but there is an urgent necessity to also establish after school programs that will complement learning opportunities for children of color, to enrich their scope of thinking about themselves and their ancestry, and motivate them to achieve what I termed as “cultural esteem”in my doctoral dissertation.”
Joesph Gbaba and the DATI organization, awaken a pioneering and limitless opportunity for the City of Brotherly Love to reassess its power and history in leading the effort to unlearn and relearn our immense history as a people through creative and inclusive spaces that will allow our communities that chance to fulfill the work led by our ancestors and reconnect ourselves to our full potential and power.
The Board of Directors and management ofDehkonteeArtistsTheatre, Inc. (DATI) cordially invites you to its community engagement performance in collaboration with PhillyCam on Friday, November 30th, 2018 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
