A wide variety of artistic interests led Detroit-born ABBA ELETHEA (James W. Thompson) to serve as a columnist, dance critic and editor of UMBRA magazine in the late 1960's. CONTRAST-COHESION-CONTINUUM, his interdisciplinary teaching method, was developed during his tenure as consultant to the Thirteen College Consortium, a group of historically black universities which included Atlanta University, Southern, Morris Brown, and Clark. As poet-in-residence at Antioch, he developed and taught the college's first course in Aframerican Poetry. Elethea's work has been presented and dramatized at international festivals in Africa, Europe and the United States. TRANSATLANTIC REVIEW, PRESENCE AFRICAINE, ANTIOCH REVIEW, OBSIDIAN, BLACK WORLD and ESSENCE are among the periodicals in which his works have appeared. He has contributed to several anthologies, including THE POETRY OF BLACK AMERICA, THE BLACK POETS, YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT, BLACKSPIRITS, EXPLORING LIFE THROUGH LITERATURE, and MASS MEDIA. With the premiere in 1985 of SONGS FOR MY SISTERS, a choreopoem musical at New York's famed La MaMa experimental theater, he entered upon a new frontier. Melding poetry, music, dance and theater, his experiment led to the creation of EYE ELLIPSE/EAR ETERNAL: SOUL SO SWEET, a performance art piece.