Founders
Abdel R. Salaam - Executive Artistic Director/Choreographer
Born in Harlem in 1950, Mr. Salaam began his artistic training at the age of five with the study of music through piano, xylophone, and glockenspiel. At the age of nine, he began to study classical viola, and by age eleven he was playing the alto saxophone, an interest, which grew out of his love for jazz music. Upon graduation from the High School of Music and Art in 1968, Mr. Salaam was accepted at Lehman College through the S.E.E.K. program. His college years were informed by African American Cultural Nationalism, and a new African centered identity that swept college campuses in the late 1960s and early 70s. He was an integral member of the Lehman Black Student Organization, Kubanbanya, and was one of the two student activists left on campus after its leaders were barred from entry to negotiate what would be the birth of Lehman’s Black Studies Department and Curriculum.
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Olabamidele Hart-Husbands - Executive Managing Director
Olabamidele Hart-Husbands is the Executive Managing Director of the Forces of Nature Dance Theatre, which she co-founded in 1981 in partnership with Artistic Director Abdel Salaam. In 1982 she carried the company’s mission to Nigeria, West Africa where she had been in residence since 1977. She produced and hosted a weekly television series entitled “The Forces of Nature” which aired until her return to the United States in 1984
Dyane Harvey-Salaam - Founding Company Member/Pilates Master
Dyane Harvey is a founding member and assistant to the director of Forces of Nature Dance Theatre Company, a Harlem based company whose mission is the preservation of this planet and the empowerment of people of color.
She has performed as principal soloist with the Eleo Pomare Dance Company for over over 20 years, having toured the United States, Italy, Australia and Lagos, Nigeria as U.S. representative in F.E.S.T.A.C. (the Second Black and African Festival of Art and Culture). Click To Read More