OUR PROGRAMS

Join our instructors as they employ a unique technique when teaching the basics of drumming for beginners. They also offer new perspectives for seasoned percussionists who want to learn about professional hand drumming techniques and rhythms.

Potential Outcomes:

Composed of 2-10 drummers and dancers from Ghana, West Africa. Each member shares the high energy rhythms and dances of their culture, with a focus on educating those about the history and instruments of their region.

Potential Outcomes:

Master Drummers Mapathe Diop and Massamba Diop demonstrate the drumming and music from cultures in Senegambia with discussions focusing on the talking drum and sabar drums.

Potential Outcomes:

Accompanied by live drumming and focusing on the movements and rhythms specific to traditional dance, participants learn to anticipate signals that indicate changes and variations in dance steps.

Potential Outcomes:

This interactive hands-on workshops teaches participants how to build Ghanaian drums and shekeres. Participants are also educated about the relationship between wood carvers, drum makers, and drummers.

At the end of the session, students will take home a finished African shaker.

Potential Outcomes:

An arts-integrated and culturally responsive series of presentations and workshops that works in tandem with drumming and dance instruction and performances.

Find the associated programs to the right of this card:

• Africa & Ghana: Geography, Language & Culture

• African Music in Ghana: Tradition & Innovation

• African Based Musical Traditions in the Americas

• From Congo Square to the Bronx

• Evolution of Popular Ghanaian Music

• Fun facts on Africa + Ghana

• Discussion of cultural regions, ethnic
  groups and languages of Africa + Ghana

• Music as a form of culture

• Overview of African music characteristics

• Discussion of Ghanaian music

• Diversity of Instruments

• African Songs in Ghana: Myriad of Contexts

• Ceremony, the Drum, and African Ritual

• Master Drummer: Roles and Functions

• Griots: West African Storytelling
  Traditions and Cultural Memory Systems

• Cultural Change- Instruments and
  genres, role of audience, social commentary

• Diasporic Music of Latin America and the Caribbean

• The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade

• Haiti- Francophone Caribbean

• Cuba- Hispanophone &
  Latin America/Spanish Caribbean

• Brazil- Lusophone Latin America

• The Greatest Story of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Never Told

Potential Outcomes:

• From Slavery to Slavery: New Orleans

• Congo Square and the Ring Shout

• “Jass” and all that Jazz:
  Development of Black Music into Jazz

• Latin American and Caribbean Roots

• Birth + Development of Hip Hop

• Obo Addy: Life and Times

• Kpanlogo Party and the Birth of Highlife

• “World Beat is my Beat!”:
  Development of World Beat Music

• African Hip Hop and Traditional Roots

Unknown to most people today, this workshop delves into the historical elements of hip hop music back to the Bronx in the early 70s and even back to African cultures.

Before rap and hip hop existed, poets have written and also orated over music such as jazz and other musical forms as a way to build community and influence society.

A truly American art form rooted in the cultural traditions of Black and Indigenous people, you’ll learn about the periods that Jazz has gone through along with demonstrations by some of the best jazz musicians of the PNW and the world.

In this workshop, you’ll learn the value of using dance as a way to free the body, get in touch with one’s self, having fun, and building community.

Join our mentors and instructors in learning the basics of audiovisual recording, engineering, and production, while filming your own music videos with your peers.

Music doesn’t always have to encompass intricately crafted instruments. Sometimes you can just use what’s around you…like a bunch of empty buckets!