Freitag, 30. Dezember 2016

A wonderful cultural journey through time

A wonderful cultural journey through time 

100 years Anniversary:
organisation god helps Uganda in Zizers, Switzerland

September 2016

On this festival we supported Uganda. We are there as the African presenters. There were a lot of activities on this festival. Bookwriters were there to give speaches and other organisations had their stands on the festival place.
We had the African stand.
From 9 am. till 6 pm. we offered every 45 minutes a workshop and presented a concert. Aaron and me started the day with a show to announce the starting workshop.
After two workshops, we got people lining up to take part in the next round. This kept going on till the evening. The workshops and concerts had its own story to tell.
 In the afternoon we got half an hour brake and we used that opportunity to watch around on the festival.
Every stand you go had its own history to tell. You can see pictures and working tools of 100 years ago being used in Zizers / Chur. You can follow the production of the farmers of the area, such as seeing the cornmill, cider press or snaps distillery. We had possibility to try some of them by ourselves.
We visited also a stand where they dressed you up to look like the people 100 years ago. A lot of families dressed up like this with their children and took pictures in black and white with that old type of camera. And the studio looked also like 100 years ago, with its chairs, cupboards and room items. This was really fascinating. Suddenly as we were watching them, some of the workers there started smiling at us, talking to eachother. We got closer and they said, they want to show us a picture. We saw then old pictures of Africans who visited the Swiss friends 100 years ago in this village. Such a surprise! We were the only two Africans in that Moment on this stand. So we use that possibility to play a bit a theatre. Aaron should dress like those Africans 100 years ago in Zizers and I will come as a musician friend who visited him in that time. After they dressed Aaron up and me standing next to him in African dresses, with a talking drum under my armpit, waiting for taking picture, people started to gather and watch us. I think it really looked to them like a cultural journey through time.
After taking the picture, a lot of people asked to take pictures with us. We nearly missed our next round of giving workshop. Suddenly we saw the organiser walking towards us: „ people are waiting for you!“ Aaron undressed fast and we quickly went to our stand, 10 minutes late, but they were still waiting for us. The workshopo went on successfull and we had a good show.
 Finishing and to pack the drums was another surprise. We found out, the Swiss working there, were all relatives. Since generations they had contact and exchanges with African people. Everybody who helped us there, was telling us a story about where they have been in Africa. Some where also in Ghana before and many of them still live in African countries and just came for the festival.


The wonderful cultural journey through time brings the motto : music is energy – energy gives happyness. 

Donnerstag, 29. Dezember 2016

Celebrating Ghana and Africa

Celebrating Ghana and Africa: 6th August 2016, Geneva, Switzerland

There were a lot of programs going on, which was fascinating me so much on this day.
They trained the children, who live in Geneva the traditional dances from Ghana and let them perform. They really took the show very seriously and gave all their energie. Our group wings of a dove percussion power was supporting them with the music.
A wonderful fashionshow was also part of the program an they showed beautiful african dresses, designed by a Ghanaian, who lives in Geneva.
We also had to lead the chief and queenmother with music on stage. It really felt like we are performing in Ghana. The Ghanaian Ambassador arrived and we welcomed him with music.
There you could feel good energy in the place. Wings of a dove was cooling the whole place with a nice percussion and flute music. We played very old songs from Ghana and you can see the elders, who knew those songs were singing it together with the flute.
Smiling was in everybodys faces. The children felt so exiting and were walking around happy.
We catched the mood and put up a very nice performance. Additional the acrobatic show was very fascinating and surprising for everybody. The cheering and applause was going high.

This brings me to my motto : Music is energy - energy brings happyness.