Volume I. 'Com'on the Dozens Ain't Nothin' but a Game...So Who'z yo' Momma?' A ritual poetic drama within the African Continuum. Volume II. A re-vision: Toward a re-connection of the dramatic artist with the African origins of the dramatic form

Spiritual alignment comes from knowing your ancestry. Properly aligned, the artist of the dramatic form could mobilize a community and a nation toward massive social change. My study focuses on the retrieval of the African origins of the dramatic form, specifically the exploration of ritual poetic drama. Due to a dis-connection from the African origins of the dramatic form, western/European theatre arts have become a commodity to be bought and sold without regard to content or contribution to the common good. Rather than being the instrument and promoter of change as was intended within the African Continuum, the dramatic arts industry maintains itself as a weapon in the hands of the dominant culture.;I have isolated, what I believe to be, the predominant or precursory constituent to this apparent deterioration of the dramatic form in America as the education/ training of the dramatic artist. Artists are taught that the origins of western drama were Greek. Western theatre history has traditionally been established, perpetuated and defined by distorted ideologies that are inextricably tied to racism and the dominant culture's worldview. There is therefore, strategic importance in locating the origins of the dramatic form within the African Continuum and the formative role that continuum realistically played in the creation of what is known as the western theatre tradition.;Through the use of Ritual Poetic Drama in the African Continuum, I have created a new methodology whereby the individual/collective process of the artist/participant and audience/participant can be manifest. This new work enables the dramatic artist to access the depth of their individual/collective content. It is self-determining and self-defining.;Although this work is particular to addressing the needs of the African-American dramatic artist there has been evidential proof of its universal application and overarching stabilizing effect for the individual artist.