Mohamed Bangoura will be teaching an African Drum and dance workshop June 5, 6, and 7th, 10 to 6 pm each day.

The cost for the three day workshop is $250 before May 15th (earlybird rate) and $300 after May 15th.

Deposit- $75 to confirm your place

The Saturday and Sunday workshop, June 5th and 6th will be at North New Brighton War Memorial Hall, 93 Marine Parade in New Brighton, 10 am to 6 pm both days.

On Monday June 7th, the workshop will be at Club Havana, 52 Princess St, near Tower Junction shopping centre, 10 am to 6 pm.

Contact me and I will give you the details for depositing money to confirm your place in the workshop.

Also, on Friday June 4th at 7.30 pm Mohamed will be performing and headlining an “African Dance Party” at the Harbour Light Theatre on London St in Lyttelton.

$15 per person. Doors open at 7.30 pm, show starts at 8 pm

This is a video of Mohamed on television from a few years ago;

Mohamed was born in Guinea, West Africa in a village called Bourramya-Koubya. This village is a few hours north of Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Mohamed started to play at the age of 5, and has been surrounded by music is entire life. Mohamed was a member of the internationally acclaimed “Percussions de Guinee” and other National Ballet ensembles based in Conakry.

Mohamed is now based in Sydney and holds regular workshops in drum and dance. He teaches and performs throughout Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Japan. He also takes students back to Guinea every year as an introduction to Guinean culture.

If you want to learn more about Mohamed you can visit his websites djembekan and Mohata

African Dance, Drum, and Music workshop with Chris Berry March 27 and 28, 2010

Come learn the healing rhythms, songs, and dances with drums and mbira and storytelling taught by Chris Berry

After 23 years of study, initiation & immersion in African music, Chris Berry has been Given the name Gwenyambira “one whose music calls the spirit”. A distinction reserved only for those who have mastered both the complexity & magic of the music. Now Based in New York & touring regularly with his incredible world fusion dance band PANJEA, Chris, advised by many of Zimbabwe spirit mediums has embarked on an international journey to share the ancient knowledge of Njinji using storytelling music, drum,  and dance. It is the hope that people around the globe will become practitioners of this powerful healing art form & use it as a means of strengthening ourselves, our communities & ultimately restoring balance & joy back into our societies

Music, drumming, dance, craft and knowledge will be taught at the Workshop that will be used in the final ceremony on the Sunday evening. The ceremony will be one of cleansing, healing and re-connecting with our deeper selves. The structure of the ceremony will be based around the four elements and directions whose sacredness is shared by many cultures around the world.  The emphasis will move from acquiring more dances and rhythms to using music and dance as a catalyst to the sacred.

The people of Zimbabwe use the M’Bira as a way of calling the Ancestral Spirits and Chris uses it as a powerful tool in his storytelling to immerse the listener in the deeply meaningful journey that these stories can take you on.

Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm    Yaldhurst Memorial Hall, corner of Yaldhurst and Pound Rd, Christchurch,

Map here for Saturday venue

Sunday, 10 am – 10 pm at North New Brighton War Memorial and Community Centre, 93 Marine Parade, New Brighton

Map here for Sunday venue

COST:   $170  Earlybird rate ( $200 After March1st)

Deposit: $80 (non refundable, to confirm your place)

Further information: Ra Mc Rostie 03 434 8224  or mob 021 1154884

or Jeff Duyndam 03 357 2217 or mob 021 02737514

Email:   ra@korudance.com   jeffduyndam@xtra.co.nz

Website: www.drumtalk.co.nz

]]> http://www.djembejournal.com/african-drumming/chris-berry-in-christchurch/feed/ 0 http://www.djembejournal.com/african-drumming/drumming-in-the-new-year/ http://www.djembejournal.com/african-drumming/drumming-in-the-new-year/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:48:45 +0000 jeff http://www.djembejournal.com/?p=1140

Thanks to all who have participated in the African drum and dance classes during 2009. It has been an awesome push forward in the growth our African drum and dance community here in Christchurch.

Chris Berry will be teaching an African dance and drum workshop in Christchurch the last weekend in March 2010.

Also, Mohamed Bangoura will be returning in June.

The new year looks good for more fun classes and more performances for us.

This Tuesday, December 15th is the last drum class before our Christmas break.

African drum class will start up again Tuesday January 5th.

Happy Holidays and happy drumming!

This video was taken by Corinne, one of the drummers here in Christchurch. The tall drum is called an ngoma. Here is what she says about the video,

“After tramping 70km through Nki National Park in the congo basin rainforest in Cameroon, we stayed the night at the Baka pygmy village on the outskirts of the park. One of villagers, Pierre, was our guide. The next day they performed some traditional music for me. They were infatuated with the videos i took It was an amazing experience.”

Here is a short video of Kpanlogo from our show at the Loons Club

Starting on Monday July 13th, I will be teaching an ongoing  intermediate drum class 7-9 pm at Abberley Park Hall.

If you are interested in coming to this new African drum class, send me an email or let me know next time you see me.

Happy drumming 

Here are some more details on the House of Pleiades vision, project, and band.

On the night of the show, there will be some video being taken for a new upgraded version of the House of Pleiades music video.

The plan is to have several videos made out of the footage, to feature the drumming, the dancing, the band playing with the drummers, and the band itself. This is going to be interesting to see where this all takes us 

The House of Pleiades is an ongoing project and we hope to continue improving along the way.

If you haven’t seen the video for House of Pleiades, here is a link to House of Pleiades on you tube.

If you are inspired by this project, sign up on youtube, go to the houseofpleiadesnz channel (type in houseofpleiadesnz when you get to youtube) and become a subscriber to our channel. While you are there, rate it at 5 stars (simply click on the fifth star) and leave a good comment, thanks!

all the best,

Jeff

We are having a fun, relaxed, no pressure African drum and dance show on Friday, July 3rd 8 – 10 pm at the Loons Club in Lyttleton.
Ra McRostie, www.korudance.com, has taught us several African dances over the past year. Three of them she has taught two times each.

We are going to be playing these rhythms and dancing these dances for the first half of the Friday night show. The second half of the night we will be joining the House of Pleiades band to rock the night away.

Kate Hamilton, will be organising the dancing. If you are interested in participating, we are having a practice on Monday night, June 29th at 8 pm. Contact me and I will forward your email to Kate.

see you soon,

Jeff

I’m at a loss for words…

I’m back from an amazing healing experience. Sorry to get “woo woo”, but this is real, this is life at it’s best.

We learned that playing music, dancing, drumming, and singing is for healing and is healing. But to get this deep inside is shocking in a good way. I am appreciating Chris and his gift of music. Thank you!

You can listen to his songs at his website panjeamusic.com

You can also download 10 live mp3 tracks from their shows around the country at the website

Abdoulaye Diakite has a wonderful message of the Bamana name for djembe, jebe bara, when translated means “unity drum.” He says in his video message on youtube, “You play djembe, you bless your family, you play djembe, you bless your wife, you play djembe, you bless your children.”