African Ensemble's First Performance!

Well, the African Ensemble had its first performance! We were all very excited to show what we've learned over this semester.

We performed right after the jazz ensemble, which did an excellent job. They played several different pieces, and the solos were entertaining. We watched in the back of the performance hall of the Frohring Music building and were very impressed. At first I felt sort of out-of-place: all the members of the Jazz Ensemble wore nice black dress clothes; we wore our street clothes, decked in colorful African head bands and armbands, and the five dancers wore traditional lapas, which are these brightly colored cloths wrapped around them. Also, the Jazz Ensemble were playing several songs and went for well over half an hour; we had only planned to perform two of our rhythms. But I knew it would be amazing anyway.

After the Jazz Ensemble were done, we situated ourselves on stage with our drums. Olu was wonderful and really got the audience involved with the performance. He told the audience about the different drums and rhythms, so it was both entertaining and educational.

I have video of the performance, but they are both too big to upload directly onto blogger and too long to put on Youtube. I will try clipping some time from the videos and put them on Youtube so you can see them.

The first video is of the rhythm Kasa.

The second video is the the rhythm Dundunba. In this one, Olu brought everyone's volume down for the solos. If he nodded at us it meant, "Go! Play whatever you feel!" I was the second soloist. I am the red blur just right of center. =) Also, five ladies from our ensemble (Kelly, Rachael, Jean, Melissa, and Jooi) went to the floor and danced in front of the audience (unfortunately their dance doesn't show up too well in the video).