CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL TEACHERS

Updated September 10, 2023

Certified Professional Teachers have studied Umfundalai intensely, have performed with the technique's professional company, Kariamu &Company: Traditions, and/or have completed NAAADT's M'Singh Wuti and Professional Training Programs. They have "active" certification to teach Umfundalai at professional levels.

Click on any of the images below to see the Certified Umfundalai teacher who is working in your state.

Stafford C. Berry, Jr., MFA

INDIANA

Stafford C. Berry, Jr., MFA, is an accomplished artist, educator, activist, and scholar of African-rooted dance, theatre, and aesthetics with an extensive background in arts and education. He has studied performing arts in the US and in Guinea West Africa, and he has toured nationally in the US, and internationally to London, England, and the Caribbean. He is a certified teacher of the Umfundalai Contemporary African Dance Technique and a licensed Zumba® Instructor. Mr. Berry was Associate Artistic Director of Baba Chuck Davis' internationally acclaimed African American Dance Ensemble (AADE) for 14 years; Assistant to the Choreographer of Kariamu & Company: Traditions in Philadelphia for 5 years; former Co-Director of The Berry & Nance Dance Project; and former Faculty at the American Dance Festival.
Mr. Berry’s artistic work has toured internationally and is concerned with black male discourse, black folks’ embodied epistemologies, and “making space” for African American, Lgbtqia+, “weirdos,” and disempowered communities. He has won several choreographic and residency grants from: Durham Arts Council (NC), North Carolina Arts Council (NC), Greater Columbus Arts Council (OH), Taft Museum of Art (OH), Bloomington Arts Commission (IN). In addition, Mr. Berry has served on various arts boards nationally.

Leanna Browne

MINNESOTA

Leanna Browne is a dancer, teaching artist, choreographer, and educator. She holds a BA in Psychology and Special Major in Dance & Black Studies from Swarthmore College. Leanna’s introduction to Umfundalai was through Oluko C. Kemal Nance during his tenure at Swarthmore. Some of her training includes the Umfundalai Teachers’ Intensive, Nanigo, Zenon Dance Zone, Philadanco Summer Intensive, and Penumbra Theatre’s Summer Institute. In 2017, Leanna became a M’Singha Wuti-licensed teacher in Umfundalai. Currently based in the Twin Cities area, she has worked with various artists and companies such as BLAQ, Leslie Parker Dance Project, Contempo Physical Dance, Jonathan van Arneman (AJ), Threads Dance Project, Ryan Parent, and Erinn Liebhard. As a teaching artist, Leanna has taught children, youth, and adults in different community-based, after-school, and summer programs. These include the BELL Xcel summer program and the YMCA School Success program at Maxfield Elementary and independent classes at CO-MOTION Center for Movement. During the 2020-2021 program year, she was selected as a Momentum: New Dance Works artist. Leanna’s work explores areas such as dance for social change, her Afro-Caribbean heritage by way of Montserrat, healing, joy, and transformation.

Julian Darden

GEORGIA

(HE/HIM/HIS)
Julian Darden studied performance and choreography at the Esther Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a teaching artist, he has worked with Philadelphia’s youth as an Education Assistant at the Lenfest Center, and a Mentor/Dance Instructor with Upbeat Dance Center, Elkins Park School, Woodrow Wilson Middle School, Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School, The Village of Arts and Humanities, and both Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School and Conwell Middle School through the Pennsylvania Ballet. As a performing artist, Darden danced with D2D: Dare to Dance Co., Kariamu & Company:Traditions, and the Nance Dance Collective. Some of his recent credits include performing with the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble in Kingston, Jamaica and the Philadelphia Fringe Arts Festival in 2016, 2017, and 2019.

Josephine Heard

Dara Meredith, MFA

Pennsylvania

Dara J Meredith, an Atlanta native received her B.F.A. in Dance and is the University of the
Arts recipient of the highest honored Stella Moore Award. She received her M.F.A. at Temple
University and was awarded the Rose Vernick Choreographic Achievement Award. Dara has
had an extensive performance career touring with Total Dance Theater in Senegal, West Africa,
Brian Sanders’ "Junk", “Black Nativity”, and Sonia Sanchez’ “Living Legends” tour. She is the
former Assistant Artistic Director, Principal dancer, Choreographer, and Rehearsal Director for
Eleone Dance Theatre and has also choreographed for Bad Boy’s “Danity Kane”, Grace Dance
Theater, and CAPA of Philadelphia musicals. Dara co-founded DCNS Dance Intensive and has
taught and choreographed for the West Chester University, Drexel University, Temple
University, University of the Arts, and Pennsylvania State College. She received a "Best
Choreography Award”" from National Dance Showcase, Fringe Festival’s “Rocky Award", the
“Ellen Foreman Memorial Award” from Drexel University, the “E Award" from Eleone Dance
Theatre, and the “Audience Choice Award" for the highly competitive International Dance
Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2020 Dara was commissioned by the Delaware Art Museum
to create, “The Bridge of Our Roots”, her own full-length evening choreographic response, to
celebrated painter, Eldzier Cortor’s “Southern Souvenir No. II”. Dara is currently an Adjunct
Faculty member at Drexel University, Temple University, and a full time dance educator in the
Philadelphia Public School System. She has a Professional Certification in the contemporary,
pan African,Umfundalai technique, and is certified in Progressing Ballet Technique. She is a
proud wife and mother of 3!

Tina Mullone, MFA

Rhode Island

Tina Mullone (BA, MFA) is Assistant Professor of Dance at Bridgewater State University and a New England board member for the American College Dance Association. She is a certified M’Singha Wuti instructor of Umfundalai contemporary African dance technique, Pilates mat instructor, and dance education consultant. She has performed in Texas, Louisiana, Philadelphia, Virginia, New York, Germany and Mexico. Her training background is in Agrippina Vaganova technique, Martha Graham, Jose Limon, Katherine Dunham, Umfundalai contemporary African dance, various dances from Africa and the Diaspora. To highlight training, she studied at Dallas Black Dance Theatre, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco Dance School, Urban Bush Women, Katherine Dunham Institute and the American Dance Festival. In addition to a number of outreach programs and studios, Tina taught at Texas Ballet Theater School, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth and Texas Christian University. Tina is co-director of M2, a performance art duet based in Monroe, LA. For 11 years, she commuted from Louisiana to Texas to continue her professional career as a performer with Beckles Dancing Company, and CD/FW (as Associate Artistic Director). Tina’s current research interests are centered around the following: African Diaspora dance, dance as a conduit for social change, African- Americans and the spaces that define/confine, the presence of spirituality in dance, Black feminism in movement & visual art, arts + education=what? and movement based therapy as a result of trauma. Tina is humbled and excited to begin this next journey with Umfundalai. All praises to Mama Kariamu, the master teachers and those who continue to keep the flames burning.

Angela Pittman, MFA

NEW YORK

Angie Pittman is a New York-based dancer-choreographer whose works sits in the Black Radical Tradition. Her choreographic work uses dance, text, and sound to illuminate nuanced and experimental portrayal of Black dance. Angie has had the pleasure of being able to create collaboratively with A Sef, Jasmine Hearn, Jonathan Gonzalez, Athena Kokoronis, and Anita Mullin. She holds a MFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a graduate minor in African American Studies and is a certified Professional teacher of the Umfundalai technique. As a dancer, she has danced in work by Larissa Valez-Jackson, MBDance, Ralph Lemon, Tere O’Connor, Cynthia Oliver, Anna Sperber, Donna Uchizono Company, Jennifer Monson, Kim Brandt, Tess Dworman, Antonio Ramos, C Kemal Nance and many others. As an educator, she has taught at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Movement Research, MoMA, Sarah Lawrence College, Marymount Manhattan College, and is currently an Assistant Arts Professor of Dance at NYU: Tisch School of the Arts.

Tabatha Robinson, EdM

CALIFORNIA

Danzel Thompson-Stout, MFA

ILLINOIS

(HE/HIM/HIS)
Danzel Thompson-Stout, a native of Allentown, Pennsylvania is a performer, choreographer, and educator of Afro-American dance forms. With an embodied cultural history in street, club and contemporary African dance, Thompson-Stout commits to authentically representing Black dance forms into the academy and beyond. As a performing artist, Thompson-Stout has worked with several street dance artists including Vince Johnson, Kyle Clark and Rennie Harris. He is among the last generation of dancers who have been trained by Dr. Kariamu Welsh and holds a professional teaching certification in the contemporary African technique she founded, Umfundalai. Umfundali has availed opportunities to tour as a principal dancer with Kariamu & Company Traditions, The Berry & Nance Dance Project, and The Nance Dance Collective. Thompson-Stout has also performed as a guest performer for the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble of Kingston, JA. Thompson-Stout continues to be sought out nationally by universities such as University of Maryland Baltimore County, and internationally by the as Afro Dance Xplosion Conference in London, UK. He holds a BFA in Dance from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and by May 2021, he will have earned a MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Sheila A. Ward, PhD

VIRGINIA

Dr. Sheila A. Ward is presently a tenured Professor in the Department of Health, Physical Education and Exercise Science at Norfolk State University. She is Co-Director of and performs professionally with Eleone Dance Theatre of Philadelphia, PA. She holds a B.S. in Physical Education with an emphasis in Dance from Indiana University, M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from Temple University, and MPH with a concentration in Epidemiology from Eastern Virginia Medical School. She is a licensed PreK-12 Virginia Educator in Dance Arts, Health and Physical Education, and Health and Medical Sciences. Integration of her degrees in exercise physiology, epidemiology/public health, and dance has served as the foundation to promote, ‘Health Empowerment through Cultural Awareness,’ the guiding principle from which she conducts scholarly activities related to chronic disease prevention and management. She is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), a Registered Kinesiotherapist, and a Certified Instructor for both the Umfundalai African Dance Technique and the Katherine Dunham Technique. She is currently on the Editorial Board of the Physician and Sportsmedicine, a reviewer for JOPERD, and Chair of Grants & Research for Black Women in Sport Foundation. She is the Project Director for the NSU Health and Wellness Initiative for Women, a Roster Artist for the Virginia Arts in Education Residency Program, Virginia Commission on the Arts, and Past-VP of Dance, Virginia Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. She has served as a reviewer for the Virginia Commission on the Arts Virginia Arts on Tour and most recently, a panelists for two New Jersey State Council on the Arts programs, general program support for professional dance organizations and an arts education special initiative.

Dr. Ward has successfully received state, federal, and private funding for research and program implementation including authoring and implementing twelve (12) dance-related grants such as $40,000 from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through Dance Advance Award for the reconstruction of “Americana,” a signature work of the legendary Ms. Katherine Dunham and $96,000 to acquire and present a new work by Dianne McIntyre. Her presentations and publications on the international, national, state, and local levels are extensive and varied such as the publications of African-centered Dance: An Intervention Tool for HIV/AIDS Prevention, Health and the Power of Dance, and African Dance Aesthetics in a K-12 Dance Setting: From History to Social Justice. She was the recipient of Norfolk State University’s Distinguished Faculty Award for Scholarship and most recently the recipient of a Virginia Department Health/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant related to High Impact HIV Prevention Efforts, Monitoring, and Evaluation in Hampton Roads.

She began dancing with Robert Pemberton, Jr. and Rodney Williams in Richmond, VA. She performed and trained with The Philadelphia Dance Company (Philadanco) and Philadanco II. At Indiana University, she was a member of the African American Dance Company and the IU Dance Theater. Dr. Ward was featured in Dance Teacher Now and Upscale Magazine and was an Honoree of the Virginia Peninsula ACT-SO Program and the recipient of Mayoral Citations from the City of Philadelphia for her contributions to the Philadelphia arts community. Dr. Ward is a Herman C. Hudson Alumni Award Recipient, African American Arts Institute, Indiana University for her “outstanding career as a dance artist, educator and scholar.”