Choreographer Ama Law ’08 MFA ’19 Brings Signature Street Style Back to UMD

The dance artist-in-residence is teaching and collaborating with UMD students.

By Jessica Weiss ’05 

When Mariama “Ama” Law moved to New York City in 2008 after graduating from the University of Maryland, she yearned to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson. And she almost was—making it to the final round of auditions. But along the way, she found a place she liked to dance even more: the club. 

From waacking, voguing and popping, to getting sweaty to house music and battling hip hop dancers until the sun rose, nightclubs were where Law, the dance artist-in-residence in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS), discovered that street style movement could be her outlet “in a spiritual way.” 

Now those movements show up wherever she goes—in performances at venues from Dance Place to the Kennedy Center, and in workshops and classes both locally and across the country. Finding intersections between African dance forms, street dance and modern dance forms, she’s constantly “walking the line between the choreography world and the freestyle world.”  

“I've always been that person that doesn't exactly fit into any one style,” said Law, who got her MFA in dance from TDPS in 2019. “I've had to create the spaces for myself and invite those people who have similar interests to come and dance with me.”

At UMD, she teaches hip hop and modern classes and is preparing work to be featured in the Faculty Dance Concert this weekend. Her piece, “Dreams and Mournings,” explores the erratic and ever-shifting experience of grief and features nine undergraduate student dancers. Throughout the semester, the students have explored how grief shows up in their own lives and how to process through it, collaborating with Law and each other on the choreography. The piece will feature elements of voguing, waacking and house as well as explorative, contemporary dance and structured improvisation.

“This has been such a challenging semester for so many reasons so as much as it has been about building this dance piece for the show, I think equally it's been about building community and fostering ways to support each other,” Law said. “Even though we all feel like we're too busy, it's important to just take that time.” 

Next semester, Law will be the artistic director for UMoves: Undergraduate Dance Concert. Outside of UMD, she is a mom of two and makes up half of the duo behind Project ChArma (pronounced “Karma”), a collective of teaching artists dedicated to using art as activism, which she created with her husband Chris Law ’08 MFA ’17. Project ChArma is currently a local dance commissioning project awardee at the Kennedy Center, where they’re preparing a piece to premiere in April featuring the music of Nina Simone. This fall, they hosted a Halloween party where families were invited to dress up like a famous social change maker, and helped curate National Dance Day 2023, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip hop. At their events, they always seek to create spaces for discussion and reflection. 

Law’s parents were both founding members of the DMV’s esteemed KanKouran West African Dance Company. As undergraduates, both she and Chris—who first met at Parkdale High School, not far from College Park—were part of UMD’s DyNaMiC hip hop dance team. After undergrad, Law completed a professional semester at Broadway Dance Center in New York. Upon her return to Washington, D.C., she joined the hip hop dance troupe Culture Shock D.C., and started her own girl crew called Kick Rocks. She has since taught and choreographed at a range of area institutions including Howard and American universities. 

Because of her deep and varied dance background, Law said she hopes her time at UMD will bring new perspectives to students and help strengthen the campus’ ties to the vibrant DMV dance community. 

“One thing that is important to me is the feeling of giving back to the communities that have helped to nurture me,” she said. “I want to plant these small seeds in the next generation, making sure the younger ones that are coming up underneath me are still just as informed, still just as empowered and finding their voice.”

Law’s work will be featured in the Faculty Dance Concert Friday through Sunday, alongside work by Associate Professor Adriane Fang, Artist in Residence Kate Ladenheim and Principal Lecturer Alvin Mayes. Learn more and attend. 

Photo by JHsu media.