A great time.....

Sunday Nov 29 was a great day at the Studio.....our annual Rhythm Café was enjoyed by many! Lots of participants were in the all ages drum workshop hosted by the youth, who had a chance to hone their leadership skills. The performances by the ROOTS kids and the Youth were terrific, including some pieces they did together. The silent auction was a hit, with more big ticket items this year. Thanks to Hayley our manager who spent many hours prepping and organizing items for auction! We also appreciate the donations from community businesses and our food sponsors Planet Coffee, Bridgehead Coffeehouse and Cocoa Camino.
The fundraising event raised approximately $3000 towards Baobab Tree's arts education activities.

Fanta Connection

In preparation for Rhythm Café (this coming Sunday at the studio from 2-5pm), members of the older ROOTS class joined the youth performers at their rehearsal. They will be performing a couple of pieces together at the annual event. After meeting & greeting they worked on a vocal and drum version of Drum Talk, a series of rhythms from the northern region of Ghana. We also had a terrific joint Bell Forest rehearsal with lots of cool rainforest sound effects.
Rhythm Café is also a chance for us to kick off the fundraising campaign for FOOTSTEPS TO GHANA 2011. This is an educational tour that Baobab Youth will undertake to Ghana in the summer of 2011. Some members of the ROOTS class will be moving up into the youth group by then, so last night's joint rehearsal was a great way to get to know each other better. AND as luck would have it, we were visited by the FANTA Fairy. On past youth trips to Ghana (2001 & 2006) the favourite drink to enjoy at the village "spot" is a bottle of cool orange Fanta. last night everyone got a taste of that for themselves, handed out by Lucia, one of our senior members who was on the 2006 trip. Bottled Fanta is hard to come by in Ottawa, so it was an awesome and much-appreciated treat. Big Thanks to the FANTA Fairy!!!!

Youth on the Hill

Baobab Youth Performers performed this past Monday in the Senate Chamber in honour of National Child Day. Hosted by Senators Jim Munson, Terry Mercer and Ethel Cochrane, the event was a wonderful mix of inspiring stories and performances by young people . Baobab Youth had the honour of opening and closing the event, complete with procession and recession. The drum sounds great in the beautiful and wood-filled room....dancing on the plush red carpet was another thing... Other performers included Propeller Dance, HB Breakers from Hintonburg Community centre (we are big fans!) and the Ottawa Catholic School Board choir.

Grannies Groove!

Several members of the Capital Grannies have been gathering for occasional workshops at the Baobab Tree House studio with Kathy Armstrong. They recently performed at a gathering of several granny groups, who are part of a large network that raises money for the Stephen Lewis Foundation. They led themselves in arrangements of West African drum pieces, south African chants on some of Baobab 's drums and drums that they made themselves. Apparently they were a hit!

"We did it and loved it! A short quiet practice in the kitchen ( they didn't want any noise !) and then we were on. It was a great feeling when all the grandmothers joined in with our singing and chanting! The more they did the more we enjoyed the moment. The audience seemed to really get into it and followed us around the room on the last piece - they were chanting and clapping. It is amazing how drumming, singing and chanting can create such community spirit. Thanks so much for giving us the confidence we needed. We now want to expand our pieces so will be back in touch for more workshops! "
-Kate Bryant

Youth rehearsals

Baobab Youth Performers began rehearsals with Storyteller Damay Gagnon last night. We were all mesmerized by the fantastic props made by Maureen Clarke......who is also hard at work on a backdrop for the performance. Damay led us through the story, about a little warthog who uses drums to affect big changes in the African Forest, some good, some not so good..... We spent time trying out the props with our dance and drumming. We are using the Ewe piece Zigi to form the musical framework behind the story.
This story, along with others, will be presented on Sunday November 8 at the Ottawa Storytellers event for children at the Library and Archives (395 Wellington). We will also present it at our own Rhythm Café, on Nov 29th here at our studio (415C Piccadilly).

Awesome Indies!!!

Baobab Youth kicked off the Awesome Indies Urban Festival for youth the first weekend of October. Along with breakdancers from Hintonburg and Montreal, the youth performed their South African Gumboot dance on the street outside the very hip Patrick John Mills Gallery on Friday night. A great community event that attracted locals and visitors of all ages. On Saturday they joined BOOM!, Propeller Dance and Rabab-e-Panjab for a groove parade throughout Hintonburg, which culminated in a collective performance at the Hintonburg Community Centre, showcasing brazilian rhythms, contemporary dance, West African rhythms and dance and very colourful Punjabi dance & percussion. Some great community connections were made...thanks to all especially WIAM who produced the Festival!

Classes

Classes at the Tree are going strong this fall. Some great buzz and turnout for our new Monday night teachers Prosper Adjetey and Dominic Donkor. The first dance class was an amazing energetic workout -even the floor was sweating! Here they are with some students.....the rest of our classes all begin this week including the kids classes. Numbers are big, in fact some classes are sold out. Its great to see people back in the groove, old and new friends of Baobab Tree.

Rhythm Trek

A few comments from the Rhythm Trek drum camp participants last week....
"I really like the hand drums and the beat we learned (Zigi) Kwasi Dunyo and Kathy are great teachers and Andrew (Dunyo) is really funny and a good dancer! I've been to this camp 3 times and it is my favourite camp." Ioyan, age 10
"I thought it was cool to meet everyone in the group. I found out that African drumming was not as easy as I thought." Alex, age 10
"It was fun working with Emma (youth volunteer) to make things happen and it was also fun to learn all the Gota parts that happen while I am usually dancing!" Lucia, 17 youth volunteer
"I liked when Kwasi came to do some drumming with us. Also when Emma gave me piggy-backs. That was the first time I touched an African drum! It was.......AWESOME." Annika, age 8

...back from Ithaca

Just came back from an amazing week working with educators at the CME course at Ithaca College summer music session. Seventeen conductors learned Gahu, Ghana Alleuia, Kpanlogo, and a new arrangement of Bobobo by myself and Rory Magill. We also had a terrific young people's choir of 70 voices who rocked the final concert with their terrific singing and dancing and gospel styles. Made up of students from the Ithaca Children's Choir and the Young People's Chorus of New York City, as well as oneyoungrandomstranger from Ottawa, they were fantastic musicians. Thanks to Janet Galvan who directed the week! Kahti