An internationally heralded ensemble of master drummers, musicians and dancers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Wacongo Dance Company brings to the stage the traditional ancestral songs and dances of Central Africa. The company’s breathtaking and visually spectacular performances explore the cultural traditions and vibrant ceremonial costumes of more than 400 African ethnic tribal groups in a high-energy program of singing, stories, mime, drumming and dancing that’s perfect for audiences of all ages. See them at the University of Dayton's Boll Theatre on Wednesday, April 7, in the middle of their week-long residency.
Wacongo Dance Company
Wacongo Dance Company MySpace Music Videos
Wacongo Dance Company
Wacongo Dance Company | MySpace Music Videos
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Drums, Fun & All that Jazz Help Reclaim Community Connection
Drums, Fun & All that Jazz is the first Culture Builds Community (CBC) project centered at the Cleveland Neighborhood School Center (NSC), the fifth and last NSC to host a CBC project. “I think Cleveland came last only because we assumed the need for the arts was not as great as in the other NSCs. But we were dead wrong!” says Kelsa Rieger, Community Programs Manager at Cityfolk, “The school has a long tradition with the arts, and still has an incredible music program, but it became clear as soon as we started meeting with the community that there is a great sense of loss surrounding their old School for the Arts being ‘taken away.’ [In 1999, while a new school was being built.] Everyone got really excited about this project.” Kym Beasley, Cleveland NSC site coordinator, said “It feels like the perfect way to breathe new life into the school, and help us reclaim our roots.”
And that is exactly what happened last week at Drums, Fun & All That Jazz , the highlight event of a two-week long residency with premiere visiting artist Matt Wilson and his Quartet and local percussionists Claude Fambrough [pictured at left] and Adam Elfers [drumming in bottom photo]. Students at the new Cleveland NSC built drums with Elfers and Fambrough and learned team work through group rhythm-making techniques. Last Thursday evening they got a chance to show off their new skills during a large community event that combined percussion, group music-making, creativity, and culture.
Over 300 people turned out on that cold February evening. The attendees together with the artists created so much heat inside the school, I thought people were going to forget their coats on the way out. The evening began with a heart-warming home-cooked potluck in the auditeria and drum-making crafts in the gymnasium. Youth and adults were seen testing out their new rhythm makers and trying out the captivating Jumbi Jam steel drums that were on loan at the school from the renowned steel drum company Panyard, Inc.
Once everyone was warmed up, the zany and talented Matt Wilson [pictured here] served as the ring-leader for the remainder of the evening, which turned out to be a circus of eclectic music, drumming and dancing. The program featured The Hands that Beat the Drum, a collective of African-inspired percussionists; the award-winning Cleveland Jazz Band led by Joy Jones; Matt Wilson’s awe-inspiring jazz quartet; and even Chris Erk, a talented local tap dancer who showed up on a whim with tap shoes and board in hand.
The participatory nature of this energy-filled event lifted spirits and created lasting bonds among the diverse attendees from the school and its surrounding community. Everyone was invited to participate in a drum circle led by Wilson, Fambrough and Elfers, while Wilson’s band played a melody over the top. “I feel that the residency with Claude Fambrough and Adam Elfers and the CBC Drums, Fun & All That Jazz was a huge success! Parents and kids are still talking about it!” exclaimed Kym Beasley.
This celebration was planned by local stakeholders as a way to reclaim the school’s role as a place where the arts are practiced and celebrated, and to further the NSC goals of establishing the school as a center of community life. And it was successful in part because the folks in that school get it. They’ve seen what the arts can do, and they rallied around the idea of bringing this residency in and using it as a tool for bringing the students out of their shells, getting their creative juices flowing, and bringing people together in the school after hours.
Support for the concert and educational activities is provided by The Morgan Family Foundation. Drums, Fun & All that Jazz is organized and presented in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Dayton, the Cleveland PK-8 Neighborhood School Center, and the Walnut Hills Neighborhood Association.
And that is exactly what happened last week at Drums, Fun & All That Jazz , the highlight event of a two-week long residency with premiere visiting artist Matt Wilson and his Quartet and local percussionists Claude Fambrough [pictured at left] and Adam Elfers [drumming in bottom photo]. Students at the new Cleveland NSC built drums with Elfers and Fambrough and learned team work through group rhythm-making techniques. Last Thursday evening they got a chance to show off their new skills during a large community event that combined percussion, group music-making, creativity, and culture.Over 300 people turned out on that cold February evening. The attendees together with the artists created so much heat inside the school, I thought people were going to forget their coats on the way out. The evening began with a heart-warming home-cooked potluck in the auditeria and drum-making crafts in the gymnasium. Youth and adults were seen testing out their new rhythm makers and trying out the captivating Jumbi Jam steel drums that were on loan at the school from the renowned steel drum company Panyard, Inc.
Once everyone was warmed up, the zany and talented Matt Wilson [pictured here] served as the ring-leader for the remainder of the evening, which turned out to be a circus of eclectic music, drumming and dancing. The program featured The Hands that Beat the Drum, a collective of African-inspired percussionists; the award-winning Cleveland Jazz Band led by Joy Jones; Matt Wilson’s awe-inspiring jazz quartet; and even Chris Erk, a talented local tap dancer who showed up on a whim with tap shoes and board in hand.The participatory nature of this energy-filled event lifted spirits and created lasting bonds among the diverse attendees from the school and its surrounding community. Everyone was invited to participate in a drum circle led by Wilson, Fambrough and Elfers, while Wilson’s band played a melody over the top. “I feel that the residency with Claude Fambrough and Adam Elfers and the CBC Drums, Fun & All That Jazz was a huge success! Parents and kids are still talking about it!” exclaimed Kym Beasley.
This celebration was planned by local stakeholders as a way to reclaim the school’s role as a place where the arts are practiced and celebrated, and to further the NSC goals of establishing the school as a center of community life. And it was successful in part because the folks in that school get it. They’ve seen what the arts can do, and they rallied around the idea of bringing this residency in and using it as a tool for bringing the students out of their shells, getting their creative juices flowing, and bringing people together in the school after hours.Support for the concert and educational activities is provided by The Morgan Family Foundation. Drums, Fun & All that Jazz is organized and presented in partnership with the YMCA of Greater Dayton, the Cleveland PK-8 Neighborhood School Center, and the Walnut Hills Neighborhood Association.
See more pictures from this event here.
Matt Wilson Rocks K12 Gallery As Part of Cityfolk Residency
On Saturday, February 27, the K12 Gallery for Young People presented a workshop featuring jazz drummer extraordinaire Matt Wilson and his quartet. While the K12 Gallery Family Art-Making area has been a cornerstone of the Cityfolk Festival, this was the first time the two organizations have collaborated on an event during the season. Wilson--whose penchant for zany, no-holds-barred, fun is matched by his serious chops on the drums--was the ideal musician to head up the activities.
The session started with the young artists creating drawings inspired by the music of the quartet (which included multi-reedist Jeff Lederer, trumpeter Ron Miles and bassist Chris Lightcap). Then one by one, Matt asked the children to hold up their artwork for all to see and the musicians improvised in various combinations, taking their inspiration from the drawings.
Finally the young artists decorated their own percussion instruments and receieved an impromptu primer on the basics of rhythm, joining in to play along with Wilson's quartet.
Special thanks to Jeri Stanard and Kelly Sexton at K-12 and the Morgan Family Foundation for helping make the event a success. You can see more pictures of the event on the K-12 Website.
The session started with the young artists creating drawings inspired by the music of the quartet (which included multi-reedist Jeff Lederer, trumpeter Ron Miles and bassist Chris Lightcap). Then one by one, Matt asked the children to hold up their artwork for all to see and the musicians improvised in various combinations, taking their inspiration from the drawings.Finally the young artists decorated their own percussion instruments and receieved an impromptu primer on the basics of rhythm, joining in to play along with Wilson's quartet.
Special thanks to Jeri Stanard and Kelly Sexton at K-12 and the Morgan Family Foundation for helping make the event a success. You can see more pictures of the event on the K-12 Website.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
YouTube Spotlight: Scotty Anderson
Last season's Scotty Anderson performance at Canal Street was a sell-out, so we're bringing you another chance to hear this guitar phenom on Friday, March 26. Country, blues, swing, straight ahead jazz--Anderson and his high flying band play it all. Don't miss the return of this titan of the Telecaster in a perfect setting.
Turn up the sound on your computer and bask in Scotty Anderson's masterful guitar licks:
And here, he describes a little bit about his style:
Turn up the sound on your computer and bask in Scotty Anderson's masterful guitar licks:
And here, he describes a little bit about his style:
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Masks and Puppetry Featured at 2010 Cityfolk Festival
The annual Cityfolk Festival offers such a cornucopia of musicians and musical styles and sights and sounds that it can be easy to overlook the festival’s Material Culture exhibit. That’s a mistake because year in and year out, the Material Culture area contains some of the coolest stuff you’ll ever see. Personal favorites from last year were Rebecca Cross’ amazing shibori wall quilts and Mai Lo Vue’s Hmong/Amish quilts, while memorable highlights from past exhibits range from Mary Gaynier’s incredibly intricate paper cutouts to Wayne Henderson’s internationally renowned guitars.
The Material Culture theme for the 2010 Cityfolk Festival (July 2-4) is one that promises to be fun: Masks and Puppetry. The Material Culture exhibit and activities will be curated, as they were last year, by Sara Cogswell. She has lots to work with, as both masks and puppetry offer hundreds of interesting avenues to explore.
Masks have been around forever. The oldest surviving mask—a stone mask found in the Middle East—is roughly 9,000 years old. Whether used for concealment, protection, ritual, performance or just for fun, masks are used in virtually every society in the world, for reasons both sacred and profane. From children’s Halloween masks to the elaborate creations worn by Mardi Gras revelers, from the Lone Ranger to Batman, from religious ceremony to dramatic spectacle, masks are ubiquitous, mysterious, infinitely variable yet still completely human on some elemental level.
Puppetry is an even older art form than masks, dating back some 30,000 years according to some accounts. Puppetry is a storytelling art and medium, and puppets have been used wherever people have told stories. Like masks, puppets of one form or another are found in almost all human societies. Puppetry might well have developed in India, where the main character in Sanskrit plays from 6,000 years ago was named Sutradhara, “the holder of strings.”
Two puppeteers accompanied Hernando Cortez on his first trip to Mexico in 1519 (I find that fascinating for some reason), but the concept of puppetry was already well established in the Americas almost 1,000 years before that, as part of funerary practices. Though puppets are still occasionally used for practical or ceremonial purposes, they are mostly used in modern times for entertainment.
Puppetry today has many varieties, including marionettes, in which figures are manipulated from above using strings; ventriloquism, in which a puppeteer manipulates (or “throws”) his or her voice so that it appears to come from a “dummy”; hand puppets, like the Muppets; bunraku, a Japanese tradition in which up to three people control giant puppets with sticks; British “Punch and Judy” puppetry; shadow, rod and finger puppets; a unique style of water puppetry developed in Vietnam where the puppeteers stand in waist-deep water and the puppets appear to walk and move on the water; and even a Tony-winning Broadway puppet musical, Avenue Q, an R-rated homage to the Muppets that contains the songs “It Sucks to Be Me” and “What Do You Do with a BA in English.”
Sara Cogswell is exploring these themes now and whittling down the list of potential artists. More details will be posted beginning in April. [Photos are from past Cityfolk Festivals. The first is Puerto Rican mask maker Kenneth Melendez. The second is members of Sol Azteca with Son de Madera.]
The Material Culture theme for the 2010 Cityfolk Festival (July 2-4) is one that promises to be fun: Masks and Puppetry. The Material Culture exhibit and activities will be curated, as they were last year, by Sara Cogswell. She has lots to work with, as both masks and puppetry offer hundreds of interesting avenues to explore.
Masks have been around forever. The oldest surviving mask—a stone mask found in the Middle East—is roughly 9,000 years old. Whether used for concealment, protection, ritual, performance or just for fun, masks are used in virtually every society in the world, for reasons both sacred and profane. From children’s Halloween masks to the elaborate creations worn by Mardi Gras revelers, from the Lone Ranger to Batman, from religious ceremony to dramatic spectacle, masks are ubiquitous, mysterious, infinitely variable yet still completely human on some elemental level.Puppetry is an even older art form than masks, dating back some 30,000 years according to some accounts. Puppetry is a storytelling art and medium, and puppets have been used wherever people have told stories. Like masks, puppets of one form or another are found in almost all human societies. Puppetry might well have developed in India, where the main character in Sanskrit plays from 6,000 years ago was named Sutradhara, “the holder of strings.”
Two puppeteers accompanied Hernando Cortez on his first trip to Mexico in 1519 (I find that fascinating for some reason), but the concept of puppetry was already well established in the Americas almost 1,000 years before that, as part of funerary practices. Though puppets are still occasionally used for practical or ceremonial purposes, they are mostly used in modern times for entertainment.
Puppetry today has many varieties, including marionettes, in which figures are manipulated from above using strings; ventriloquism, in which a puppeteer manipulates (or “throws”) his or her voice so that it appears to come from a “dummy”; hand puppets, like the Muppets; bunraku, a Japanese tradition in which up to three people control giant puppets with sticks; British “Punch and Judy” puppetry; shadow, rod and finger puppets; a unique style of water puppetry developed in Vietnam where the puppeteers stand in waist-deep water and the puppets appear to walk and move on the water; and even a Tony-winning Broadway puppet musical, Avenue Q, an R-rated homage to the Muppets that contains the songs “It Sucks to Be Me” and “What Do You Do with a BA in English.”Sara Cogswell is exploring these themes now and whittling down the list of potential artists. More details will be posted beginning in April. [Photos are from past Cityfolk Festivals. The first is Puerto Rican mask maker Kenneth Melendez. The second is members of Sol Azteca with Son de Madera.]
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Jazz Drummer Extraordinaire
Recently gracing the covers of Downbeat and Jazz Times magazines, Matt Wilson has moved center stage among the premier percussionists in jazz. And though he has powered the bands of everyone from Elvis Costello to Wynton Marsalis to John Zorn, it is with his own quartet that he truly comes to life. “I get to express myself in all the contexts I play.” he recently told Downbeat, “I don’t go in with an agenda, I know that I want to make any song feel good and comfortable.” A pure bolt of energy behind the kit, his drumming and bandleading is suffused with the kind of high, good humor that sends everyone home happy. “If you can make people laugh, you can make people cry, though if you are on middle ground you are not doing either. To me, a little bit of all of that is a successful engagement.”Catch his energy at Herndon Gallery in South Hall at Antioch College in Yellow Springs on Saturday, February 27. Tickets are only $10.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Volunteers' Gifts Keep On Giving
Cityfolk has always relied on the support of our amazing volunteer corps to keep our programs humming, and we're blessed with some of the best volunteers anywhere. And as if their time, talent, and hard work isn't reward enough, the employers of several of our most valued volunteers have recognized their contributions with cash grants to support Cityfolk's work. Northrop Grumman Corporation, Syracuse Research Corporation, and Reynolds & Reynolds have all recently made contributions to Cityfolk in recognition of the volunteer efforts of their employees.
Syracuse Research Corporation employee Larry LeMieux and current and former Reynolds & Reynolds employees Sunni and Mike Russo have been Cityfolk Festival stalwarts for many years, and all three play important leadership roles for the festival that require their involvement much of the year. All three also provide many hours of volunteer service throughout our regular season. It's no exaggeration to say that their contributions would be nearly impossible to replace. And that fact that their involvement has led to generous financial support from their employers is icing on the cake
Edmund Cordray, an employee of Northrop Grumman, has also been a long time supporter of Cityfolk. He and his wife, Leslie Hyll, have been active in the festival and contra dance series for years. In addition, Ed and Leslie helped present Cityfolk's opening concert of this year's season, a fantastic concert featuring the Balkan Cabaret.
We're grateful for the generous support of these companies, but we can never show enough appreciation to Larry, Sunni, Mike, Ed and Leslie, and the hundreds of other volunteers that make Cityfolk's programs possible.
Syracuse Research Corporation employee Larry LeMieux and current and former Reynolds & Reynolds employees Sunni and Mike Russo have been Cityfolk Festival stalwarts for many years, and all three play important leadership roles for the festival that require their involvement much of the year. All three also provide many hours of volunteer service throughout our regular season. It's no exaggeration to say that their contributions would be nearly impossible to replace. And that fact that their involvement has led to generous financial support from their employers is icing on the cake
Edmund Cordray, an employee of Northrop Grumman, has also been a long time supporter of Cityfolk. He and his wife, Leslie Hyll, have been active in the festival and contra dance series for years. In addition, Ed and Leslie helped present Cityfolk's opening concert of this year's season, a fantastic concert featuring the Balkan Cabaret.
We're grateful for the generous support of these companies, but we can never show enough appreciation to Larry, Sunni, Mike, Ed and Leslie, and the hundreds of other volunteers that make Cityfolk's programs possible.
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