Teamwork

After many performances in various places we became a very strong team. With the help of our formal leader Atsu Hehealolo, we were able to get a good understanding from the traditional music.  Since we came to Nima, with the lack of the drummers, I was often playing the leading drum. Atsu really put us into work. Among the executives Richard was one of the youngest among us, but we chose him as our new leader.

 What I liked from the members of Kusumgboo was, everybody gave out all what he or she can. We always gave to everybody the possibility to bring his or her idea. The dancers had to bring some dance movements and Richard was taking it and rearranged it into a new dance. The communication inbetween we the drummers and the dancers brought good understanding of our creativity.

As everybody knows, this is not every day easy. Sometimes we ended up missunderstanding eachother. Some of the members could not take it and put it into tears. But what I liked was, no matter how hard it was, we made it happen. That rehearsal compound in Nima became our second home. We made sure everything we wanted we then achieved it. If the dancing got complete and we are performing it on stage, you can see that the music is really cooking. Everybody was in the mood of creating art. Most of the time the other groups referred to us, that we play too fast. We agreed with them, because we put competition among us. Our energy dancers wanted to show us, that they can dance so fast and we the notorious drummers wanted to tell them, that we are also there. Combining all this music harmony together brought always good results.

To be honest we all became like brothers and sisters in the Kusumgboo group, like it was in the formal peopel’s cultural group.

You can see in our creative dance the character of Nima. When I say the character of Nima, I mean the variety of the different ethnics living together with their different traditions and music. In the 80s till 93 music was played in Nima 24 hours a day. If it was not an outdooring celebration, it was a wedding of funeral. A lot of events happened with its own traditional music.

Anytime I was playing in my group, I found myself palying some rhythms, which I heard from one of these traditional events. This was inspiring me so much, that I had selfconfidence, when I lead the drumming rhythms. Coming from Nima, the cooking pot of cultures, gave me a huge pool of various rhythms and musicstyles. Thats how we all benefit from. The dancers of course as well.  Speaking about music, I really miss Nima and my brothers and sister from the group.

Recently I went to Ghana and watched Kusumgboo with their new comers inside. The energy, the movements and the power of the performances was the same like before. I was very much impressed about that.

With the help of sister Comfort we had to perform in the PAFAM 1990. Afterwards this festival was called Panafrican festival.  There we performed infront of many big artists, like Jeremiah Jackson, Isaac Lee Hayes and Steven Wonder. It was a very great and big performance for us. We performed the dance drama „slave trade“.

That was the first time we performed on a  professional stage with a lot of light effects. It was in the evening and we were not able to see the audience. By this time I didn’t know this effect. After the performance we came to the stage again and we took a bow. Only then we saw, that we performed infront of a huge crowed, with many international known artist sitting in the front row.

In the days after, our leader brought the newspaper, which we were in and there we could see also the world known musicans , which were listed up beside the picture. We were proud and happy. I was very happy, because I really gave my best on that evening and I didn’t realised the audience.

I‘m giving a lot of credibility to my acting collegues Mercy (akpene), Victoria (Mama), Kate, Mafiu,  Noah, Late Mosee (aba the warning), Godwin, Dodgee, Vincent (Sampele), Steven and Late Richard. Also from the drumming colleagues Koshi, Vovo, Late Bernard, Late Emmanuel, Etienne, Goro, ODjata, Edo and others.

In my Blogg I mentioned Panafrican Orchestra. They also took part in PAFAM 90. On that festival we had an ID-Crad to visit all places of the festival in the Trade Fair Accra. There I found a stage where the panafrican Orchestra performed every afternoon and evening.  As I saw them I didn’t want to go anyhwere else anymore. I found out their rehearsal times and their performing time. This was the first time I saw traditional instruments from all the different ethnics of Ghana in a orchestra and I was very fascinated about it.  I always stood there and watched them through the window.

After the festival I sometimes got the possibility to watch their show and I learned a lot from them. Later I got to know one of their members who lives in Germany now and I started to play with him on concerts. Still up till today I am performing with the leading flute player of the panafrican orchestra Nana Kwesi Ansong.

 

 

John Kofi Donkor