Panel Discussion: The Dunham-Beckford Bay Area African-Haitian Dance Legacy
Moderated by Halifu Osumare, Ph.D.
May 10, 2025 – 6:00-8:00PM
Panelists: Yvonne Danie, Ph.D., Collete Eloi, Ph.D., Elya Moore, Deborah Vaughan
Panel Description
“The Dunham-Beckford Bay Area African-Haitian Dance Legacy” panel represents several generations of the Dunham-Beckford legacy that laid the foundation for the SF-Oakland Bay Area becoming one of the premiere African diaspora dance centers in the United States. Panelist will discuss the dance legacy of Dancer-Anthropologist Katherine Dunham through the lens of her former company member, Ruth Beckford, who became the Mother of Black Dance in the region from the 1950s to the 1990s. This Dunham-Beckford dance legacy has attracted the many West and Central African dance-drum masters, as well as the Caribbean and South American artists who have made the Bay Area a vibrant African diasporic cultural dance scene. This panel further documents this rich dance history that has distinguished the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area.
Panelists’ Bios
Yvonne Daniel, Ph.D.
Yvonne Daniel, Professor Emerita of Dance and Afro-American Studies from Smith College, has worked as a choreographer/performer and as an anthropologist specializing in Caribbean societies and African Diaspora cultures. Her publications include Rumba (1995), Dancing Wisdom: Embodied Knowledge in Haitian Vodou, Cuba Yoruba, and Bahian Candomblé (2005), and Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance (2011). She has co-edited three collections: Dancing the Earth (2017), Dancing Bahia (2018), and Hot Feet and Social Change: African Dance Diaspora Communities (2019). She has won the SDHS de la Torre Bueno prize, a Choice Award, a Special Citation from Dance Studies Association, and several Life Achievement Awards, all for her research on Black dance and the African Diaspora. Dr. Daniel is a Ford and a Rockefeller Fellow and has been a Visiting Scholar at Mills College and the Smithsonian Institution. In 2013, Dr. Daniel received the Katherine Dunham Legacy Award from the Dunham Institute for continuing Ms. Dunham’s reliance on Dance Anthropology, and is a proud dance protégé of Ruth Beckford.
Colette Eloi, Ph.D.
Colette Marie Eloi is an accomplished dancer, scholar, and cultural practitioner, deeply rooted in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area dance community. She is a master Haitian folklorist and award-winning choreographer, presenting work locally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Eloi had the honor of choreographing alongside the legendary Ruth Beckford in A Living Birthday Card (2006), a powerful 97-dancer tribute to the iconic Katherine Dunham for her 97th birthday memorial. In 1997 she co-organized Project Reconnect, an African Diaspora artist collective, and in 2005, she founded ELWAH Dance & Research, inspired by Bay Area pioneers such as Nontzizi Cayou, Deborah Vaughn, and Blanche Brown. ELWAH produces culturally rich performance, scholarship, and community engagement.
She earned her Ph.D. in Critical Dance Studies from UC Riverside in 2024, where she introduced concepts like the “sovereign body” and “corporeal footnoting,” reimagining African-rooted dance scholarship. Dr. Eloi is an internationally recognized consultant, instructor, ceremonialist, and co-author of a forthcoming chapter in The History of the African Diaspora (Cambridge University Press, 2026), with Dr. Yvonne Daniel. For ELWAH dance is medicine and her intention is to use it to uplift and empower the human spirit.
Eyla Moore
Eyla Moore grew up in the Bay Area playing music & dancing as the daughter of famous Jazz drummer, Eddie Moore. She holds a B.A. in Performance & Choreography from SFSU where she studied with and assisted the late, great Alicia Pierce. Since 2006 Eyla has studied with many certified and master Dunham Instructors and got certified in Katherine Dunham Technique in 2012. She won the title of Queen of SF Carnaval in 2011, and performed for many years as a proud member of Deep Waters Dance Theater and Cunamacue Afro-Peruvian Dance Company. Eyla has been teaching with the SF based Rhythm & Motion Dance Program since 2005, and is also a Certified Pilates Instructor, and devoted mother and wife. Eyla believes in the healing power of dance for all people.
Deborah Vaughan
Deborah Vaughan is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Dimensions Dance Theater, a groundbreaking contemporary dance company founded in 1972 in Oakland, California. The company’s mission is to promote public awareness of the critical role African Americans have played in shaping American art, culture, and social change. She is a dance protégé of Ruth Beckford, and after being involved with the Black Arts movement in the late 60s and early 70s, she brought that power to Dimension in her native Oakland. She has traveled, studied and explored traditional dance in West Africa, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Brazil, Congo and throughout the Caribbean, and has created diverse choreography with dance masters from those diverse parts of the African diaspora. Beyond performance, Deborah’s impact extends to community outreach through Dimensions Dance Theater’s educational programming, especially the company’s signature Rites of Passage program. Students aged 8 to 18 get free instruction in Oakland public schools or low-cost after-school classes at the nonprofit’s dance studio at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts. Ms. Vaughan carries on the tradition of Ruth Beckford in Oakland by using dance as a socialization tool to uplift her community.
