Khaley Nguewel

Greater Los Angeles African/African-American Dance Music

With support from ACTA’s Traditional Arts Development Program, producer Joyce Guy assisted Khaley Nguewel, a Senegalese dance and music company, in organizing their 2007 West African Dance and Drum Conference held during Black History Month in Los Angeles.  The West African Drum and Dance Conference is a series of traditional dance and drum workshops; it is comprised of three days of workshops taught by master dancers and drummers from Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, who are now residing in the United States.

As a participant in ACTA’s Traditional Arts Development Program in 2005, Khaely Nguewel worked with consultant Joyce Guy to assist artistic director Aziz Faye in producing a two-day traditional Senegalese dance and drum conference at the Dance Arts Academy in Los Angeles in April 2005.  Two master dancers, Marie Basse Wiles from Brooklyn, New York, and Tenefi Dambakate from Newark, New Jersey, served as artistic mentors to the Los Angeles African dance community in the dance techniques of the diverse peoples and regions of Senegal.  Both Marie and Tenefi were born in Dakar, Senegal.