Storyville: Philly Rumba by Melissa Beatriz and Andres Cisneros
Submitted on September 24,2026
Friday, February 19, 2027 at 7:00 PM
Philly Rumba by Melissa Beatriz and Andres Cisneros (USA, 2026, 25 minutes)
In Philly Rumba, a group of African American men who gravitated toward Cuban rumba as an expression of their African roots have played together for 50 years.
Melissa Beatriz is a Uruguayan American documentary filmmaker, cultural producer, and media scholar whose practice centers diasporic communities. Andrés Cisneros is a Philadelphia-based musician, educator and inventor born in Venezuela. His work draws from Afro-Caribbean traditions and rumba communities.
A Tribute to Baba Robert “Ibikunle” Crowder by Dr. Benita J. Brown (USA, 2026, 25 minutes)
A Tribute to Baba Robert “Ibikunle” Crowder (USA, 2026, 25 minutes) A Tribute to Baba Robert “Ibikunle” Crowder celebrates the life, artistry, and cultural legacy of Robert “Baba” Crowder, master drummer, dancer, teacher, and founder of Philadelphia’s Kulu Mele African Dance & Drum Ensemble. Through interviews, archival materials, music, and dance, the documentary explores Crowder’s contributions to preserving and transmitting African and African diasporic cultural traditions in Philadelphia and beyond.
More than a tribute, the documentary asks an important question: What is required to keep a living cultural tradition alive after the elders who carried that knowledge are gone? Through Baba Crowder’s story, the film considers our collective responsibility to remember, practice, preserve, and pass that cultural inheritance to future generations.
Dr. Benita J. Brown is a Philadelphia-based filmmaker, Black Dance scholar, educator, choreographer, and semi-retired Professor of Dance who continues to teach online as an adjunct professor at Virginia State University. She earned her Doctor of Education in Dance from Temple University and has devoted more than three decades to preserving, teaching, performing, and documenting African and African American dance and culture. Her recent projects include Traditions in Peace, which explores dance and music as mechanisms for healing from gun violence, and A Tribute to Baba Robert “Ibikunle” Crowder, which honors the life and legacy of Kulu Mele’s founder.
preceded by Kulu Mele: Legacy in Motion (USA, 14 minutes), produced through Scribe’s Precious Places program