Jeannine Osayande & Dunya Performing Arts Company

Jeannine Osayande & Dunya Performing Arts Company adheres to the West African Proverb, "Good Dancing and Drumming Restores the Community to Wholeness." Their programs offer platforms for people to create, imagine, ask questions, think critically, and participate. Members of Dunya- which translates to "the world"- are committed to exploring art through aspects of life. Their team of arts educators are nationally and internationally recognized in their respective fields of West African dance, drum, and masquerade traditions, as well as Brazilian capoeira and other Afro-Brazilian traditions. They specialize in lecture-demonstrations, workshops, residencies, commissioned works, concerts, performances, oral history programs and art for social change projects. 

"Dunya Performing Arts Company members specialize in laying the groundwork for cultural sensitivity through intense study of elements of various West African and Brazilian drum, dance and masquerade traditions. Arts in education provides the ability for an integrated multicultural experience into the classroom's curriculum and stimulate students to think critically about their experience in society." - Lela Patrick, Swarthmore College Alumna.