Grand Cities residents get a lesson in African drums and dancing
May 29—They had to compete with graduations, the incipient Memorial Day weekend holiday, and a dreary morning, but a trio of drummers and dancers nonetheless drew a crowd.
Christian Adeti, Maxwell Ayivi and Dorothy Assongacha led about 30 Grand Cities residents in a few different African drumming styles and dances Saturday, May 29, in Pillsbury Park in downtown Grand Forks. Adeti and Ayivi are both members of the larger Titambe West African Drum and Dance Ensemble and Assongacha is a member of the African Arts Arena, which organized the performance.
"I can see some performers, here," Adeti said, smiling, after leading the gradually thawing crowd through a basic dance routine.
Organizers set up several drums next to the park's small stage for anyone to play. One or two at a time, audience members graduated from standing amid the crowd to quietly picking up a drum, then on to tapping along with Adeti, Ayivi and Assongacha's beat before joining in whole-heartedly.
"You don't need to be African to play djembe," Adeti said, referring to his drum, which, alongside a three-piece set Ayivi played, form a "family" of instruments. "Everybody plays djembe, so it brings people, it unites people together. ... We become one soul when we play djembe."
Adeti and Assongacha also sang, and Adeti explained some basics of Ghanian culture: the symbolism of the country's flag — red for the blood of the country's forebears, yellow for its resources, green for its natural spaces and a black star for its people — and the origins of kpanlogo music, which is often performed while anglers fish near the capital city of Accra.
"To push the energy, to push their morale, while they are doing the hard work," Adeti explained. Kpanlogo music includes a metal bell, and echoes of it can be heard in Caribbean music and the work of American musician Bo Diddley, a seminal figure in rock and roll music.
The event was organized by the African Arts Arena, which is sponsored by a slew of local and national institutions, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, the North Dakota Council the Arts, the Grand Forks Community Foundation and more. Arts Midwest donated money specifically to pay for the ensemble's performance on Saturday.
The arena aims to share African culture in Grand Forks and beyond, but the performance at Pillsbury Park was also meant to be an outlet for residents here, according to Hamzat Koriko, the arena's executive artistic director.
"To just come and destress," he told the Herald. "Learn a little bit, do some movement, and also bring the community together."
