A Sunny Day in Wakefield

Yesterday we had the pleasure of performing for for annual Great Grannies Concert in Wakefield Quebec. This amazing group of women has been staging this fundraiser for the grandmothers in South Africa for years, and its been our honour to have been involved since the beginning, first with our adult group Akpokli and this year with the Baobab Youth. Summer being summer, we had only 10 of the 22 kids in the group, but these ten worked hard and played well, (including three new ROOTS kids who are moving up to the older group this season- Iris, Jona and Ben TS....)

Now, we play lots of fundraisers for wonderful causes, some more formal than others but this one is always quirky and a huge amount of fun...held on the locally famous covered bridge, performers are met by an amazing group of friendly volunteers and "grandmothers" dressed in breezy and groovy clothing. We were in great company, the Sifa Choir and the Ramesha Drummers performed, among others. This being Wakefield, there were tons of cyclists, swimmers and bridge jumpers meandering throughout the event. This is very African, this coming together of arts, community focus and everyday life, all just happening around us. Some of us went swimming after the gig in the beautiful Gatineau river, and one of us even did the big bridge jump!

A great way to raise some money and a chance for the group to dust off our drumming hands and get ready for what promises to be a busy and exciting season......Thanks to Carole for the photo.

Rhythm Trek Camp

"I liked how everyone drums and it sounds sirously good and it makes real music. I like the Gahu dance and drumming because it makes my upsidedown frown UP!
I am 9 years old, my name is Nasteho."

Last week was a special week at the studio, bringing 13 kids ages 8-12, two Baobab Youth mentors, and music, art and food instructors together for a fabulous and fun cultural learning experience.

Kathy Armstrong worked with the kids on Gahu drumming and dancing, a great intro piece from Ghana played with sticks. Rowan and Claudia were our amazing volunteer mentors from Baobab Youth. They taught the kids some great rec games, oversaw the lunchtimes and spent time working on their own leadership skills through some lead drum parts which they showcased at the end of the week.
As Rowan, age 14 said " This year's Rhythm Trek Camp was a great success. All the kids learned so much and were so much fun to work with. I also loved learning lead drum for Gahu and Kpanlogo. Once again I can't enforce how gifted, fun and exciting all of the campers are."


On Tuesday, everyone made a fabulous Adinkra art project with artist Maureen Clarke - a keepsake box- beautifully painted and inscribed, which they took home on Friday.

Ghanaian Dominic Donkor came in from Montréal to work with the campers for two days, teaching them drumming and dancing for Kpanlogo, aided by teacher and Baobab Board member Nadine Powers.
Rory and Iris Magill organized the Ghanaian food segment, making menus for the chop bar "New Friend-chop Bar" (named by the kids) and cooking and serving the food on Friday at our lunchtime celebration.


Through the generosity of the Rotary Club and Queen Elizabeth School we were able to offer four subsidized spots to the camp. The community presentation at the end of the week was a great showcase of all the fun and hard work that took place. Thanks to all who participated and helped out. Can't wait for next year!
A few closing words from Victoria, age 8 "I thought that Baobab was hard when I first saw everyone doing different beats at different times but it was not. I learned that different people from different families can have a lot in common. I made a lot of friends in Baobab, I think its really cool. "

Community Connections

Yesterday members of Baobab Youth spent a fun hour with a very hip group of kids from the Carlington After School Program. We played a short concert and then taught them some rhythms from Kpanlogo one of our more popular hand drumming pieces. Good for our kids to get more mentoring experience. The Carlington kids really picked it up quickly and it was interesting to find out that one of their staff spent ten months in Ghana as part of her University program. Looking forward to more connections....

More Toronto Tour news

Had a terrific day yesterday. We started quite a bit later so everyone was more rested. We headed down to the distillery district where there was an artisan fair, including a woman selling beads from Ghana. There was a little rain but it didn't last long. Fantastic chocolate shop, cheese shop and many cool old buildings. We then piled into vans and headed to the Eaton Centre which was a huge draw for many of them. A few of us decided to walk instead...heading along Queen to the City Hall, Queen West up to see the new AGO and then back to the Eaton Centre, a pretty hectic place! Some kept shopping and one van went down to the CN Tower area to poke around.

Then we all met up in the east end at Kwasi Dunyo's house. I think most of you know Kwasi is the teacher I studied with on my first trip to Ghana, 20 years ago this summer. He now lives in Toronto most of the year. Last year he brought his youngest four children to Canada (there is a limit as to age of dependents allowed). The boys Andrew, Kwasi jr. Kofi and Kwabla range in age from 17-25 and are terrific and engaging guys and apparently not bad looking so say some of our group :). They were all home and helped Kwasi host a wonderful party, with traditional Ghanaian food and much fun, impromptu drumming. This is one of the things we enjoy in preparation for our upcoming tour to Ghana in July 2011. Some of our kids were hypnotized by a small percussion rattle called Kitibo which is an additive game/instrument that they were trying to master all night. By Ghana time they should be pretty good at it. I think everyone had an amazing time trying goat stew, fried plantain, and other soups.

We left there, dropped various kids at their billets and then headed back to our main host Jodi's, where some of the kids hung out a but more and then went to bed. A great trip in more ways than one! Thanks to all the parent drivers and Hayley the drum roadie!


A note to our Toronto Hosts....
A big Thank You for having us in your homes. And on the long weekend to boot! We had a terrific time and the kids were appreciative and impressed with the housing arrangements. I know more than one youth changed their view of what Toronto was like.....instead of just seeing a big city, they saw (and commented on) the neighbourhood feel and the friendly people. We have always enjoyed billeting the kids on our tours...its not always possible but it actually makes for a more fun and successful trip. I think only one tour to Banff we stayed in a hotel and it was not high on the list of the kids favourite trips. What they learn from staying in people's homes, meeting new people, managing their belongings and schedules is definitely part of our leadership goals for the kids. AND it was a perfect warm up to our tour to Ghana next year where they will be with each other for 2+ weeks. We were able to spot some things on this trip that need addressing in preparation for that trip.

Thanks for taking the leap with us. These kinds of experiences don't happen all that much so we appreciate it all the more.

Toronto Tour

We are having a great time here. Trip down was a breeze. Everyone had a great hang on Thursday night with games, piano playing and snacks, and host kids are thrilled to have so many teenagers around. Everyone got to their billets by 10 that night. We performed two school shows yesterday (Morse St School and Withrow Park School)and the group was a hit at both places. Very different school populations, but the praise was high at both, from the principals and the kids. The kids at the second school once they were told that the peace sign is something the Ghanaians use to praise dancers and drummers, the whole school was a waving sea of peace signs. Very cool.
Time in the big Withrow Park and hanging on the Danforth was also fun. Lots of CN Tower sightings and waving to streetcar drivers. Dinner was great Greek food for most...and hey did you know it was Lucia's birthday? (wink wink). She had her cake. :) We ended the day tired, a little sunburned and happy. Gearing up for next part of the trip..more news later.

Cool Gig

So, last night Baobab Youth had an invitation to perform for an event for the Alliance Against Malaria, an organization that counts Tony Blair among its patrons. What an incredible and dedicated group of people! The event was held at the new Black Box Theatre at the Shenkman Centre in Orleans. After our regular rehearsal we ate a quick pizza dinner and piled into cars to cross the city. We arrived early enough to get a full tour of both amazing stages, facilitated by 'Andrew' who we had known as stage manager from the previous incarnation of the space, the Orleans Town Hall. He was prouder than a new daddy! Both the large and small spaces are incredible state-of-the-art facilities that Ottawa is lucky to have. We performed for about 30 minutes after MP Glen Pearson spoke about the organization's initiatives to provide mosquito nets in Africa. We were fortunate enough to have Dominic Donkor with us from Montréal, who we had been rehearsing with for our upcoming Ghana Beats & Eats show, so we had a chance to try out some repertoire with him. Look at the amazing photo that Colleen Gray took and created for us at that gig. Can't wait to go back, either as a performer again, or an audience member! Kudos to Christine Tremblay and Arts Ottawa East!

More Black History Month News

Dominic Donkor & Kathy Armstrong just finished performing a week of concerts beginning with a lunchtime celebration of Black History month at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They also visited several schools for workshops and performances from Perth to the east end of Ottawa. Kids loved to join in on the drums at the end of the shows.....no doubt Dominic will be back in town for more work like this. Currently he is living in Montréal where he directs Keteke. For more info on these and other shows you can visit MASC at masconline.ca
Dominic and Kathy are seen here with the National Capital DFO Employment Equity Committee

The Baobab Treehouse studio was a busy place as well this past weekend....the family workshop had 30 participants including LOTS of little people interested in drums; and the adult drumming and dancing workshops lead by Dominic and his colleague Prosper Adjetey was a huge success. A sweaty, jam packed room of giggling and happy dancers and drummers by the end. Too bad we can't keep that kind of humidity in the room for the drums all the time!
Look for these two vibrant Ghanaian performers in our regular weekly spring classes beginning mid April.

NAC0's 40th Birthday celebration!

Baobab Youth Performers spent a wonderful day on Saturday February 20th onstage and offstage at the National Arts Centre with the NAC Orchestra under the direction of conductor Boris Brott. Joined by some of the ROOTS kids, our large group of drummers and dancers had a terrific time rehearsing on stage with the orchestra and members of the Ottawa Children's Choir & the ORYC, hanging out in Rehearsal Hall A, buying stuff from the performers cafeteria and playing to large crowds at the two afternoon shows. They performed "Gahu Songs" an arrangement for orchestra by William Cahn (of the percussion ensemble NEXUS) of the traditional Ewe Gahu that Kathy Armstrong arranged and taught to the choir members. Hearing the violins, basses, trumpets and other instruments playing the familiar Ghanaian melodies was an unusual and exciting experience for us all. Also on the show was the funny and charming Eugene Levy, who took a few moments with the youth at the end of the performances to pose for a few pictures and have a chat. A few autographs were obtained as well.
It was an honour to be chosen to perform on this special show with the orchestra. Happy Birthday NACO!!! Check out this cool slide show put together by Rory Magill of our meeting with Eugene Levy, featuring kooky urban honk horn music from Ghana.

A Memorable Performance

In honour of Black History month, our Baobab Youth Performers gave a concert this morning at Carleton Heights School here in Ottawa. Arriving in time for a short warm-up, we were warmly welcomed by Principal Jim Taylor, and the rest of the staff. Performing for this small school was a treat! Unlike many elementary schools where music has been cut, this small school has a BIG focus on music. Every one of the 150 students takes music as part of their regular timetable. They play instruments including recorder, as well as a special unit they did with a class set of djembe drums earlier this year. They were an attentive and engaged audience and responded well to the Ghanaian chants we taught them, as well as some spontaneous dancing and terrific questions at the end.
It was a pretty exciting concert from our viewpoint as well! Because it was during school time some of our students were not able to make it due to tests etc. This meant that those performing had to rearrange themselves and cover extra parts. In addition, it was the first time Riley played lead drum for Gota...a goal he has been working hard on since the fall. It went very well!
We had a moment of strange serendipity though, when I introduced Fume Fume and told the audience that the translation of the song were going to sing was "I shall dance Fume Fume until I die!", meaning that the dancing was SO strenuous, that they would be exhausting themselves. Its true that the dancing IS very strenuous. Shortly after the piece began, one of our youngest and newest performers began to bleed from her foot (an old wound that had reopened due to the dance moves). At first we tried to ignore it...she was smiling and continuing to dance well. But it soon became evident that her foot was not going to give up, and there was a substantial amount of blood on the dance floor which was beginning to be a slippery problem for the other dancers. True professionals though, everyone kept going. We finally signaled to the injured dancer to go get some bandages from our manager Hayley and we finished the piece. What a trouper! These are the kinds of stories that make it into our oral history amongst performers...just like Anna dancing with a bleeding foot in Ghana, and like the Bell Forest that lasted over an hour last season....
Always proud to perform with this wonderful bunch of teens! We look forward to future projects with Carleton Heights. KA

Drumming UP Support!

Last Sunday saw a packed room at City View United Church for our concert in support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation- Grandmother's Campaign and our Footsteps to Ghana tour. Hosted by the church, the afternoon featured two sets of performances by the Baobab Youth Performers, and some drumming by the Capital Grannies Drumming group. We shared delicious sweets made by the Capital Grannies and served by the City View Youth, along with information about the wonderful work the Grandmothers are doing to support the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and news about the Youth Performers' educational tour to Ghana in July 2011. More than $1100 was raised for the benefit of the two organizations. Kudos to all who helped out, especially parent and City View member Chris Tibelius, and thanks to everyone who came out to the event! A highlight was the finale featuring both groups drumming together.

An unexpected gift!

During the week of January 20-23 I had the pleasure of working at the Forsyth Country Day School in North Carolina, hosted by Choral conductor and educator Jeremy Truhel. During those three days, I worked with choral and instrumental music students of many ages at the school putting together three different Ghanaian drum and dance pieces. I also saw all the sixth grade for a special session on music, dance and culture since Africa is in their curriculum. We talked about the small village of Dagbamete which Baobab Tree has been supporting since our beginnings. I enjoyed my time there immensely; great faculty, students and facilities. On the final day, we had an informal performance in the round, where we presented Ghana Alleluia, some Bobobo drumming, a groovy and energetic Kpanlogo by the band and orchestra kids and a large scale Gahu involving drumming, singing and dancing! At the end of the demonstration, one of the sixth graders came up to me and said that after learning about Ghana and seeing the music she wanted to give something from her piggy bank to the kids in the village of Dagbamete. The folded bit of money she put in my hand turned out to be a $50 bill! I was touched by the donation, and pleased that we could deliver her support to the kids in the village when the Baobab Youth Performers go in 2011. Thank you Emily!
-Kathy Armstrong