A different drummer

7 p.m. June 16: Elephant Leaders Awards Gala, $100 individual, $175 per couple. Sheraton Atlanta Hotel, 165 Courtland St., Atlanta.

For more information on locations, ticket prices and discount packages, visit www.DanceAfricaAtlanta.com.

It’s often said an artist’s greatness isn’t recognized in her hometown until an outside authority says she’s great.

That's been Omelika Kuumba's experience as artistic director of Giwayen Mata, Atlanta's "all-sistah" African dance, percussion and vocal ensemble. The group struggled to overcome early sexist and traditionalist criticism to earn national recognition. Now it is preparing to host DanceAfrica Atlanta, a four-day festival of African music, dance and culture, on its 20th anniversary.

The authority that recognized and helped lift Giwayen Mata is Chuck Davis, founder of DanceAfrica USA and one of the country’s widely recognized choreographers and teachers of African dance.

“Giwayen Mata has, after all of these years, finally caught the eye of the public, who are witnessing their rise to popularity,” Davis said. He praised the company’s professionalism and said the group “boasts some of the best scholars in this business” for residencies in schools. Davis said he’ll recommend them for future performances in Philadelphia, Durham, N.C., and Pittsburgh.

In the community’s eyes, Davis’ support has been a seal of approval, Kuumba said. “When he says it’s worth considering, you get a big fluff.”

African and African-American culture have always been part of Kuumba’s life — she grew up in Brooklyn in the late 1960s exposed to African music and dance. Kuumba attended the first DanceAfrica festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1977 and saw the charismatic, 6-foot-5-inch Davis on stage for the first time.

“Even if I didn’t have an appreciation for African music and dance, I would have been excited just watching him, because of all the positive energy he emanates,” she said.

Kuumba moved to Atlanta about 1980 and began studying African dance seriously. During this time, Davis taught a DanceAfrica workshop in Atlanta and became one of her teachers.

Most of the city’s African dance ensembles at the time featured male and female dancers, but only male drummers. Two of the female dance teachers organized a group of women, including Kuumba, to study drumming to play for each other’s classes. It might have ended there, but in 1993 the women of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam mosque invited them to play for an all-female fashion show.

“The sistahs got up on stage during the audience participation, and it was awesome, really lovely,” Kuumba recalled.

They decided to continue. A Nigerian dancer suggested they call themselves “Giwayen Mata,” a Hausa expression meaning “elephant women,” a euphemism for leaders of women’s organizations.

Some traditionalists objected to women playing drums, but didn’t explain why, so Kuumba sought answers from indigenous African drummers. Some told her the West African Djembe drum was sacred because it was initially played only by male priests. Others cited legend that women originally created the rhythms, and preferred to dance them while men drummed them. Baba Atu Murray, Kuumba’s teacher, explained that incorrect drumming could injure the body internally and could damage a woman’s reproductive organs. Proper technique was essential.

Over the years, Giwayen Mata’s commitment to authenticity and excellence has earned acceptance from some, but not all of the community. The company has faced other obstacles, mainly financial ones. Again, Davis’ blessing has helped.

He attended a rehearsal while he was in town in 2000.

Initially, Davis said, he was drawn to the company’s sense of unity and mutual respect.

“There was absolutely no cat-fighting and no egomaniacs on board,” he said. “These women knew exactly what they were doing and (were) into their music for the long haul. I also saw that Sister Omelika was respected, and thus the repertoire could grow by leaps and bounds.”

In 2008, Davis invited Giwayen Mata to perform at DanceAfrica in Brooklyn. The troupe also performed at DanceAfrica in Chicago and Dallas that year, with subsequent tours to Dallas in 2009 and 2011 and Denver in 2012. Last month, Giwayen Mata again represented Atlanta as a featured company at DanceAfrica in Brooklyn.

Fundraising for the festival’s $120,000 budget gained a boost when Martin Luther King III was inspired and impressed by Giwayen Mata’s commitment to preserving arts and culture. He has agreed to serve as DanceAfrica Atlanta’s honorary chair, assisting with the company’s fundraising initiatives this year, said festival producer Carol Lloyd.

Hosting DanceAfrica brings Kuumba full circle into a history dating to 1977, when Davis’ company first performed in a constructed African village at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The following year, Davis brought five companies and about 70 performers together on the BAM opera house stage. More than eight additional U.S. cities have since held festivals under the DanceAfrica banner. With a combined audience of about 20,000, the DanceAfrica festival in Brooklyn is now considered the largest annual celebration of African and African-American dance.

Two years ago, Giwayen Mata gathered local troupes that perform African dance to rehearse for a community showcase. Each company — about two dozen dancers altogether — brought in about three minutes of choreography for “Sinte,” a traditional rite-of-passage dance from Guinea. One after another, each group performed its dance within the closing circle.

"The energy was so wonderful," Kuumba said. "I felt we needed to do DanceAfrica, because Atlanta artists can come together … sharing this beautiful thing called African music and dance."

“And I wanted to include Baba Chuck,” she said. “I wanted someone who had ‘the light.’”

Among those joining Davis’ African American Dance Ensemble and Washington, D.C.-based KanKouran West African Dance Company will be Atlanta’s Uhuru Dancers, Manga Dance Company, Soweto Street Beat and Atlanta Dance Connection. There will be performances, workshops, panel discussions and an African marketplace.

Kuumba hopes the festival will give both audience and performers a sense of joy, excitement and rejuvenation. Her goal: “to feature companies that have been here with our noses to the grindstone for a while, and let, hopefully the country — and possibly the world — see what Atlanta has to offer.”