The St. Michael’s College Akoma Drummers performed Ghananian and Haitian music with Ghanaian Awal Alhassan and Johnny Scovel on April 24, in a packed International Commons.
The night started casually as Alhassan led Scovel and African drumming professor Josselyne Price into the Commons, each of them hammering away at their drums. Alhassan then lulled the crowd with his flute while the Akoma Drummers and Scovel rocked the Commons with their drumming skills.
Riveting rituals
It didn't take long for Alhassan to turn the International Commons into a congested dance floor Thursday night.
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The St. Michael's College Akoma Drummers performed a combination of Ghanian and Haitian music to a packed International Commons. Click on the photo to view a multimedia on the Akoma Drummers |
About 100 people danced to the drum beats of the Akoma Drummers. The crowd of college students, families and music-lovers weren’t allowed to stay seated towards the end of the show as Awal patrolled the room, emphatically summoning those still glued to their seats.
“They brought the house down,” junior Taylor Field says.
This was Awal’s first trip to St. Michael’s, but Scovel says he has visited three times in the past five years.
It was the first time the Akoma Drummers put on a collaborative show for the school, African drumming professor Josselyne Price says.
Price was presented with flowers from the Akoma Drummers midway through the performance.
“I love my job!” she said after being surprised with the bouquet.
Having the Akoma Drummers perform at St. Michael’s with Scovel was an idea she has had for two years, but began planning at the beginning of this year. When she heard Awal, whom she met while studied African drumming in Ghana, was living in Seattle, she saw a perfect opportunity and invited him to visit St. Michael's, she says.
Two weeks prior to Thursday’s performance Awal and Scovel started to work with the Akoma Drummers, she says. The group only had four or five rehearsals together.
“The chemistry was instant,” senior Akoma Drummer Luke Lombardi says.
The chemistry was undeniable Thursday night, as Awal danced excitedly around the drummers, who were huddled in a circle at the center.
Scovel proved he had some dancing skills too. All eyes were on him as he performed a bevy of ritualistic dances to the audience’s delight.
The intensity was raised infinitely when Awal emerged from the crowd wearing a brightly colored skirt, boots covered in clanging metal, and a collection of shells that scarcely covered his torso.
“It was like nothing I’d seen before,” sophomore Greg White says. “It seemed like a very traditional outfit.”
Awal’s dance moves were as vibrant as his clothes. The way he shook his hips entertained the crowd and after a while, he had everyone in attendance dancing in a revolving circle, with everyone watching him intently for the next dance step.
At the climax of the performance, there was yelling, clapping, singing, drumming and dancing all at once; a euphoric feeling for everyone involved.
“My favorite part was when he got the older people to dance,” White said. “They had fun, but they had no rhythm.”
It's in their roots
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Awal Alhassan showed off his dance moves at various points throughout the evening. (Photo by Kelly Huettner) Click on the photo to view a slideshow of Awal Alhassan dancing |
Awal can still remember his mother singing drum beats to him while she cooked dinner. It was a difficult song, and she wanted her son to be able to play it, Alhassan says. He says he still hasn’t learned the entire song his mother hummed to him during his childhood in Ghana, but he has become a successful performer in the United States traveling with his musical group -- "Sohoyini" -- which means “one heart.”
When he was growing up in Ghana, he was in a musical ensemble led by his aunt, Awal says.
By the time he was 10 years old, he was proficient enough on the drums to be able to teach other kids. Today, he has a studio in his hometown of Seattle and holds lessons every week, he says. But drumming only fulfills half of Awal’s lesson plan. Dancing is equally as important as drumming, Awal says.
“My aunt once told me that if you learn how to play the drums, then you better learn how to dance too,” he says.
Sohoyini performs shows with drumming and dancing all over the country and usually plays at least two shows a month, Awal says.
Scovel, however, says his performing days are mostly behind him. Recently he has been hosting workshops and classes around the country, including Burlington.
He says he first felt a passion for Haitian drumming when he was invited to a West African religious ceremony in the Bronx. There were around 75 people crammed in a basement drumming Haitian beats, he says.
“It sounded like jazz to me,” he says.
From there, Scovel studied Haitian music and traveled to Haiti, where he took part in ritualistic ceremonies, he says.
Scovel only met Awal two weeks prior to the performance, but their passion for music put them on a common ground Scovel says, and they were able to impart some of their musical talent on the Akoma Drummers.
Akoma drummer Luke Lombardi says he enjoyed working with Alhassan and Scovel. They explained everything well and made practice fun, he says.
Alhassan and Scovell will be joining Lombardi and four of the Akoma Drummers for the New Orleans Dance Festival which takes place June 29-July 12. Donations to fund the trip were collected at the end of Thursday night’s performance, Price says.
The festival is filled with drumming classes and ends with a grand performance featuring every musician at the festival, Scovel says.
Future of African drumming
The drummers have one more stop before New Orleans: Higher Ground. They will open for Barefoot Truth on April 30.
From left to right, music professor Josselyne Price, senior Jud Wellington, visiting musician Johnny Scovel and visiting musician Awal Alhassan played together during the final song of the evening. (Photo by Kelly Huettner) |
The future of Price’s African Drum class will not include senior Peter Wellington, but he says taking the class has made him consider going to graduate school to study ethnomusicology –the study of folk and primitive music and of their relationship to the peoples and cultures to which they belong.
“I started listening to music in a different way,” Wellington says.
The rhythms and pulses of the drumming and how all the different parts came together to form one sound intrigues him, he says.
This interdependence is the essence of African drumming, Price says. Everyone relies on each other, and that is how beautiful music is created, she says.
She theorizes that many of her students take a music class to fulfill their art requirement, but after three more years of music class that Wellington didn't plan on taking, he is part of a tight-knit musical ensemble, the Akoma Drummers.
“Music is all about creating community, and it’s happening,” Price says.