ABBA ELETHEA
(James W. Thompson)
Detroit-born poet, performer, and cultural theorist Abba Elethea has long been a visionary voice in Black literary and performance arts. Proudly gay and unapologetically himself since birth, Elethea brought his whole truth to every stage, page, and classroom. A former columnist, dance critic, and editor with the influential UMBRA magazine in the late 1960s, he helped shape the Black Arts Movement’s vibrant legacy through both scholarship and stage.
He is the originator of the Contrast-Cohesion-Continuum, an interdisciplinary teaching methodology developed during his work with the Thirteen College Consortium, an alliance of historically Black colleges and universities including Atlanta University, Morris Brown, Florida A&M, and Clark College. As poet-in-residence at Antioch College, Elethea pioneered the institution’s first course in Aframerican Poetry, empowering students to explore Black expression through the lens of cultural identity and spiritual depth.
Abba’s lifelong commitment to cultural education and community engagement is evident in his innovative programming. He created Detroit Creates on Wheels, an artist recognition and employment program that brought music, dance, poetry, and drama into six neighborhood recreation centers, placing artists directly into the communities where they lived and served. The program’s culminating performance took place at the historic Rackham Memorial Building across from the Detroit Institute of Arts.
He also developed the Cheela Program Cultural Heritage Enrichment Education through the Literary Arts, a transformative initiative first offered to the Detroit Board of Education. Though later institutionalized with academic modifications, Elethea reclaimed it as a grassroots poetry seminar, teaching it across six Detroit libraries over six weeks and anchoring it in literary empowerment and heritage reclamation.
His written work has appeared in Transatlantic Review, Présence Africaine, Antioch Review, Obsidian, Black World, and Essence, and is featured in foundational anthologies such as The Black Poets, The Poetry of Black America, You Better Believe It, and Black Spirits. Through these works, Elethea has long championed the voices of the marginalized, the mystical, and the magnificent.
In a groundbreaking moment of creative fusion, his, choreopoem, Songs For My Sisters premiered at New York’s renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre, marking his emergence into performance ritual. Blending poetry, music, movement, and ancestral invocation, the work honored Black womanhood and queer reverence. This evolution led to Eye Ellipse / Ear Eternal: Soul So Sweet, a performance art experience centering Black sensuality, memory, and spiritual power.
A summa cum laude graduate in Belles Lettres from the College of New Rochelle, Abba Elethea continues to reside in Detroit, where he reflects, writes, and lives out the liberatory wisdom gifted to him by his mentor, James Baldwin.

Dana McBroom Manno’s life in the performing arts and education, encompasses the worlds of theatre, dance, music, fine arts and electronic media. As a senior faculty member of Adelphi University’s Performing Arts and African American Studies departments, she developed the curriculum for and taught courses in History of Africans in America on Film, the Black Drama Workshop and Ethnic Dance. Her work with Adelphi’s La Union Latino and the African Peoples Organization resulted in her appointment as Coordinator of Talent and Library Liaison for Adelphi University’s Center for African American Studies Program.  As founder and artistic director of the Adelphi Arts Ensemble, she created a community outreach program that recruited university students to perform theatre, dance and music programs for residents and students of Nassau and Suffolk counties in Long Island, N.Y.

Valois Marie Mickens, born in Washington, D.C., came to New York to study fashion illustration. She met Ellen Stewart and so, her acting journey began. A founding member of the Great Jones Reperatory Company, she is noted for her creative work under the direction of Andrei Serban. As assistant director to Mr. Serban, she taught the ancient Greek and Latin texts to members of the National Theater of Bucarest, Romania and the Seoul Institute of Korea. She is a member of Screen Actors Guild. At present Ms. Mickens is hoping to get funding for her first play, “Herd Grievance”, due in October under the LaMaMa “Creatures” project. 

Meredith Wright is a vocalist that lives in New York City. Sister Songs was a wonderful introduction to La Mama Etc and she became a member of Yara Arts Group (dir. Virlana Tkacz) and The Great Jones Repertory Company (dir. Ellen Stewart). She continued to work with cast member, musician/poet/ artist Janice Lowe, who OLIO: A Syncopated Citizenry of Sun-drenched Sable Soliloquies (Tyehiemba Jess/Lowe) and Leaving Cle (Lowe). She has been a featured vocalist with Oyu Oro Afro-Cuban Dance Ensemble. She is passionate about family audiences: she performs with One Love Cultured Kids (founder Kay Richards) and works on original adaptations/ songs of her own.