Kukuwa Nuamah was born dancing. That's what Nuamah's mother told her once, and Nuamah believes it. The Vienna resident not only established an African dance troupe, she runs a dance workout company based on techniques and routines that she has choreographed.
"My dream was to share it with the world, really," said Nuamah of the dance workouts she has created. "It's a good feeling to see it spreading, to see my instructors teaching."
With her background in West African dance and her knowledge of West African, Latin and Caribbean music, Nuamah, a Vienna resident, has created the "Latino Africano Caribbeano Kukuwa Dance Workout," which she takes to fitness gyms throughout the Washington area. She also founded the Gye Nyame African Cultural Dance Company, which focuses on dances and music from all over Africa.
"Her energy — she really pumps you up," said one of her students, Monica Jarvis of Forestville, Md. "She has the best abs I've ever seen."
Nuamah's interest in dance and music has been lifelong, ever since she was a child in Ghana. Rather than being trained in a specific dance discipline, Nuamah absorbed the culture around her, learning not only dances from Ghana but dances and music from East Africa and South Africa.
When she moved away from Ghana, first as a student in Paris then as a linguist with the World Bank in Washington in 1980, she missed the liveliness of African dance as she went to work out at the local gym. Because of that, she opened a dance studio when she and her husband lived in upstate New York.
AFTER FIVE YEARS of living in New York, they moved back to the Washington area, and Nuamah worked as a certified aerobics instructor. Wanting to introduce people to West African dancing, she began teaching classes in it.
At first, people were not used to dancing with bare feet, but they quickly grew to enjoy Nuamah's choreography as well as the music played during the workouts.
"A lot of people thought African dancing was only drums, but artists also created songs," Nuamah said, referring to soukous and makossa, two popular forms of African music. "I wanted to introduce that [to people]."
Nuamah soon conducted more dance workouts throughout the area, in the corporate gyms of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, Freddie Mac and USA Today. As Nuamah taught more workouts, she incorporated Latino and Caribbean musical and dance components into her routines, since those two styles have African origins.
"It was easy for me to put all three together," Nuamah said. "It's enabled me to show people where [the music and dance] came from."
Nuamah not only stressed a cross-cultural experience in her dance workouts but focused on helping her students develop stamina and better flexibility and eating habits.
"You're sweating, you're burning off calories, but it's so much fun," Nuamah said.
Five years ago, Nuamah developed her classes and workouts into a business, working with a composer from London on music for the classes and teaching others how to become instructors, using her techniques and choreography.
"With her music, it's like going off to the Caribbean. It takes you into another place if you let it," Jarvis said.
As Nuamah's business was growing and as some of her students became more adept at the dances, Nuamah formed her own dance company, the Gye Nyame African Cultural Dance Company. The dance troupe became a nonprofit four years ago and performs at local festivals throughout the year.
The dance company includes about 20 members, half of whom are dancers from around the area. The other half are drummers playing all kinds of percussion, from the djembe to the talking drum and the cowbells.
DANCE COMPANY members learn dance movements from all the regions of Africa: While some regions utilize the rib cage, others, like the Zulus in South Africa, like to incorporate jumping.
For LaTonya Charron of Leesburg, the dance movements were unlike anything she had experienced in her years of dance training. It impressed her so much that she became one of several full-time instructors teaching Nuamah's workout in gyms throughout the area.
"I love the music. That's what brings people to the class. Her choreography is amazing," said Charron, who was working at Freddie Mac when she took Nuamah's class at that gym. "It's totally different from any jazz, tap or ballet routine."
Although Nuamah has gained more exposure through her workouts and her dance company, her dream of bringing dance to the world hasn't ended. She sells workout videotapes on her Web site, and will start airing infomercials on her videotapes in smaller markets like Knoxville, Tenn., before venturing nationwide.
Her goal is to have her choreography and techniques certified by fitness groups.
"As long as people don't stop singing, I will not stop working out," Nuamah said.