Suffering under character: this is the continuance of „comprehension of traditonal music“

The program of sister Comfort demanded a research. I have to understand the characters she gave to me. I had to play the main character in all the plays. Therefore I went to various places to study people‘s daily life activities and behaviour.

First of all I remembered my work I did at the Nima market as a child who cleaned the shelters for the market women. I did this work for many years and I got  a lot of customers so I needed to „employ“ workers. Of course as I was also a child by then I employed my friends and we shared the money and gifts we got from the market women. So this memory helped me in the beginning for understanding the character for the child labor play. By this time I was working as a two-wheel-truck-pusher at the Malata Market in Accra. I played the character, which was filled with all my experienced  emotions to be myself a child worker.

In the play „Drug abuse“ I had to make another research in Nima and go and learn from the adicted persons, some of them were my friends. So I had access to them and the topic.

I found the characte fort he play „teenage pregnancy“  bit harder, because I was a boy and I had no expereinces about the young women. I became then friends with young women who experienced the teenage pregnancy.

With the conversations I had with them, I could act as their boyfriends. With all these experiences my acting became fluent if I am on stage. I made people laugh, I made people get annoyed. Some parents used to cry, because their ciildren were in this situation. Often if we act in schools, some of the teacher encouraged me and told me to continue with art and become a professional, because it was touching them. I was always laughing because they didn’t know, how much I suffered to play this character.

Getting to the end of the program we performed at Nima. There I gave all my power in acting. It was organised by the 31rst women movement of Ghana and it was advertised good. So we got the market women and the youth watching the play. That was without knowing the beginning of a different kind of suffering.

After the program I felt that I am not welcomed anymore for some friends and parents in my area. I didn’t understand why they behave in this way towards me. Later I found out that it is because of the character I played. I played  a person in „teenage pregnancy“, who abused the girls. Some of the parents could not accept this as a role telling a story and me being another person. They mixed the character and me into one person.

By then my mother owned a local restaurant and I had to go and buy meat for the restaurant at the Nima market. Immediatly I entered the market the women were yelling on me and called me a lot of bad names. I was surprised and got frustrated. The bad thing was, that I had I have to return to the same place, because I had no other possibilty to choose  a different way out of the market. So as I was standing on the meat selling place, my mind was running. I began to understand what was going on and why some of my friends didn’t speak to me anymore and ignored me.

As I was returning from the meat selling place and I reached those women again, they repeated the yelling. I got annoyed and felt ashamed at the same time. I was shouting on them with tears: „This is just a theatre! Leave me in peace!“ But the yelling even increased.

I walked home and felt so empty.

One day I went to the Malata market to work, but some of my friends who watched the theatre were telling me then, that I cannot go and play a theatre about them, come and work again with them.

There also - that character hit me. I didn’t know anymore what to do and where to go. These bad characters followed me everywhere. Suddenly the children of area began to call me by the name of the characters I played. I hde to respond positiv. But the bad experience I got from friends and parents made me to react harsh. Which didn’t help me, because if they begin to tease you in Nima and you react with annoyance it will remain a teasing.

As teenager I didn‘t know what to do. I then had an idea to put the whole thing into a comedy. In stead of reacting with annoyance I made them laugh. I tried to convert the negative feelings into positiv. Slowly I got all the people back, because of the funny jokes and movements I did.

We performed a lot of theatres. Sometimes I had to play a crazy man, a drunkard or a leader of the slaves. Things began to change, when I played the leader slave. People began to feel sympathy and pitty for me. Because I am the leader of the slaves, they punished me more than all the other slaves.  

In our group we didn’t use many effects. So the beatings were real and that shocked the audience so much, they got furious.

My character in the play slave trade wiped out all the negative responds in my art work.

From there on I understood how art work can effect people and their view on reality.

Now I can use those experiences in my art work. If  I get  bad experiences in the art field, I remember those events and I can now accept it in a positiv way.

More about next week….

Peter John Kofi Donkor alias Koria

Comprehension in traditional music

Being a member of people’s cultural troupe, playing the traditional bell for two years gave me a good understanding on the drums. With this I got courage to go to the training early. I trained on the rhythms I didn’t know well. Some of the dancers listened to my rehearsal and danced towards it. This made me to understand function oft he leading drum. This was communication in between drum and dance movement.

People’s cultural troupe was in the earlier 80s till 87 one of the top cultural groups in Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We had very great artists among us. That made our performance so strong and powerfull. We travelled a lot in Ghana. From the Eastern Region  up to Tamale, from the western parts to the Central Region back to Accra. During all these performances we became like brothers and sisters in the group. In some performances some of the group members could not join and if it was me, who was not selected I felt so pain. That gave me power and endurance to train more, so that I could always be selected. So I did.

In 1987 came a very sad day in my life. We went to rehearsal and after prayers we started our training. The chairman of the group got up and informed us that the group cannot continue anymore. I was not a member of the committee and so I didn’t know why. The chairman then said that he will form a new group and any member who wants to be in his group should stand in his side. Many of the artists did. Tears were flowing in my eyes and I watched the leader. The leader then said:“ It doesn’t matter how many people are left, we will still continue the people’s cultural troupe.“ The instruments were devided into two. Many of the costumes were taken by the chairman, because they belonged to him.

 We the members who didn‘t understand what was going on start to yell and say, that this is mean, we are like brothers and sisters, why we cannot understand each other. It was a debate  for about two hours. The chairman just said, I quite understand all of you but this is the solution. He was saying this with a lot of emotions. The other members in his side packed the drums and costumes and left. As they left  some of the members remain with the leader. He then bursted into tears and said: „the sad news is now, that we cannot train here anymore and I don’t also know where we will store the drums and the costumes.“

Then my sadness turned into ennoyance, because by then I dived really into music and it was my everything I had. I said, that they see that some of us come up very well and now they want to destroy the group. The leader then said, that there is  a lot  behind it and we cannot say it now. We are three member who came from the Accra destrict of Nima by then. I said then, that we will take the drums to Nima and we will find a new storing place and look for a training ground. The two other members from Nima then agreed that the drums can stay in their house. So then all the rest of the members packed the instruments to Nima.

Slowly we got an idea to look for a new training place. There was a school in front of my house and I knew the headmaster and I consulted him. He gave us the condition not to damage anything in the school and we can have a training ground there.

I felt as if I won a lottery.

We informed all the rest of the members. One Saturday we all came for rehearsal again. We payed with reduced members, less drums and no costumes.

But in each of our rehearsals we got more and more audience. The young girls and young boys began to get interested in the art we did.

One day after rehearsal we informed the audience, that anyone who wants to join, can come and write his name, register and we will try their ability. Immediatly we got about 15 young girls and boys. In two week we had about 25 young and talented members from the age of 6 till 15.

The difficult part was that our leader, who was training us  had a job in a kitchen in town. So he didn‘t have much time to come to us. The rest of the member who could help, they also had different kind of jobs and could also not come so often.

I was also working, but I always found the time to go to the rehearsal. So the whole work of training the new comers fell into the hands of the three of us living in Nima. Richard was teaching the dancing, me and Koshi were playing the drums and trained the new comers on the drums.

We didn’t have enough drums. I knew a traditional priest in our area. I went and consulted him. He agreed to lend to us some of his drums. His son Emmanuel Aheto was my best friend and he also joined the group through this request. We also rented some of the drums from Kpanlogo groups.

The group was growing big and the drums became many. The result was, that we became loud for the people who lived in the area. They made us to loose the rehersal hall, but just shortly afterwards we found another one. Also there after three week they realized the powerful sound and we have to leave again. The luck was in our side and we got another school, which was called Ananni. There was no problem and we could really heat up and come out with real training without worring about the sound.

Because we are lack of costumes, on our first performance in the area we asked our members to bring cloth of their mother. Each member had to bring at least two yards cloth. We invited the old members to come an join or watch. We performed a great show, which impressed them so much. They began to come to our rehearsal again and with their experience in art, it helped the young ones to pick up the styles from them.

The new ones were really eager to learn and we trained Monday till Friday, every evening.

In one year the old members found themself, that they didn’t fit in anymore. Because they were dancing with the young girls and boys which were full of power. So they also began to help to teach skills.

There was a competition in Accra Kokomlemle and all cultural groups took part. So we also had to train hard.

With these new members we got, we reached the semi finals and had  to trop out then. I felt pain and sad but in the same time I was happy about the youth and I was shouting:“ At least we made it. You are the musical youth!“ Among all the artists we were the new comers and the youngests group. This is were the people’s cultural troupe became the Kusum gboo dance ensemble .

In my stories I mentioned the school of performing arts. One day one of the students of that school known as sister Comfort approached us and she wanted to make a program with us for her studies. The program was planned to educate the public about teenage pregnancy, child labor and drug abuse. We worked with her for many months. With this program we had to perform in many schools in Ghana and finish it in the school of performing art at the University of Legon-Accra.

Through this I got access to watch their rehearsals and performances. After this program I got a lot of experiences, comprehension and creativity in art.

More about next week.

Peter Donkor

Childhood drumming

In my childhood I loved music a lot. So everywhere music was playing, either traditional or music which is not familiar to me, I was listened and enjoyed it. I understood some of  the text and some songs, but I didn’t know what it was about. I just let it enter me and it told me the whole story.

 I then followed traditional music groups from the Northern Togo, who lived in Nima, Accra. They often played at marriages and birthday parties. During ceremony all the elders and the women will sit in a circle. One is bringing the songs and the others are responding.  Sometimes you can see tears flowing from some people of the group. It was touching them. They then will jump into the middle oft he circle and began to dance. Others gave them coins. The musicians will then kneel down and pick up the coins. If one of the musicians stopped playing and pick up the coins, it brought the spirit oft he music down.

One day there were many people dancing and a lot of coins fell on the floor. It was too much for the drummer to pick it, so I went in and helped him to pick the coins. Suddenly he left all the picking of coins to me and played. I brought those coins to the leader of the group, he arranged it and the women came and changed it into bigger notes. I think this is how they earned their money. In the end they thanked me so much and gave me some of the coins.

Everytime I heard them, I run and stand near by them. The leader will touch my hair with a friendly welcome. I didn’t speak their language ,we communicated in Haussa. I will be with them for hours, working with them. They introduced me to other groups also, such as the Nigerian talking drum players, the Kidi-group.

I loved to do this, because in the end I am proud in front of my friends. The group had important people with them, like their chiefs, queenmothers and royals, and it was not easy to get closer to them. Specially as I am not even a moslem, nor speaking their language. I am Fante and Christian. But they just watch me as a helper and let me do the work. In the end they began to let me change the money.

This gave me the courage to form my own group with my friends and…with milk cans and Milo (chocolatedrink) cans.

Because I was there everytime the musicgroup performed so their music became familiar to me. So we the children group tried to play the same.

Sometimes we tried to sing their songs, but we don’t know what we are singing. The elderly people of the Northern Togo group will pass by and smile to us. This showed to us, that we did well.

Since then I was always looking to join a real music group, but at the same time I was afraid, that I maybe cannot do it.

So one day I went and see at the roman church school in Nima and they were drumming and dancing. I was very interested, but I didn’t know how to approach them.

So I went home and still played my can drums with my friends.

One day a friend of mine, whose father was a traditional priest, had a ritual ceremony. There was a lot of traditional music from the Ewes going on in their house and compound. Because of his son, many of the priests knew me. So I could get closer to their ceremonies, though I am also not Ewe.

Among the Ewe drums my friend was playing the Kaganu ( a smal ewe drum). I was sitting beside him and one of the priest came suddenly with a second Kaganu. He gave it to me and brought also a stick to play.

As I listened this rhythms and music a lot, I didn’t feel difficult to watch my friend and play. I think the two of us just felt happy or we don’t know what it was, that you can feel the music was cooking and heating the priests and the audience. It was powerful day and many of the traditional priests came out with their powerful performances.

Today I remember these days and I can see, how much research I have done for myself in those days, without realising it.  

I talked a lot about groups in Ghana already and those who gave me courage to have a very big interest in the traditional music was the Sankofa group in Art Centre Accra.

One day I followed my elderly friends to the Accra beach near the Art Centre. By this time didn’t know anything about Art and its Centre. As we walked through the Centre I heard drumming, but I didn’t hear this rhythm before. The music called me and drawed all my attention away from going to the beach. I went near and found out that you are allowed to watch the group. I asked the friends I came with to stay with the group. They agreed, but I have to stay in the Centre until they came back from the beach and get me again to go home. Because there are always a lot of people on the beach and I could easly get lost.

I enjoyed this day so much. The whole rehearsal of the Sankofa group was so amazing. What I was so surprised about was, that some of them are in the age of my father or mother. But they were on fire. The dances they did and the rhythms they played was not familiar to me.

Later I found out they are playing Tora, Takai, Adjagbeko, Kpanlogo and many other dances which I know now and play it on every occasion.

In the following days I walked often from Nima to Accra to the Art Centre, which is about 90 minutes walk to find out if they are there again and play. I missed them and slowing I found out all the day of their rehearsals. On those days, I went to the Art Centre and there was no music, I saw them teaching the dances and rhythms to foreigners.

This gave me courage to take part in our primary school music events. I was doing well in the drumming and dancing courses. One day we have to play a theatre to thank our parents. Our master Mr.Dogbe wanted me to be the chief and pour libation before we start the show. The play was in the Ewe language.  By this time I spoke Ewe, but not fluently.

But the others in the classes, who didn’t speak Ewe at all were sad, but it was fun.

I that primary school all are mixed ethnics and religions. We had  lot of fun with this theatre. Master Dogbe would not give us  chance to fool around. So he really put us into work. We performed for our parents very nice with joy and happiness. In the end we called our artists name, which we got through the art course in the school. Some names were too big for us.

Today I feel pitty, there was no pictures or videos of this event, because the feedback was so great. This theatre gave me the power to look now seriously for a group to join.

I went to the roman church school and wanted watch their group. But I didn’t find it powerfull anymore. So I looked for another one.

It was difficult to find a group to join in 1980.

I saw a group playing on the funeral. They played some music and danced  like the sankofa group. As they closed I followed them up till New Town, Accra. I saw then where they put their drums. I asked one of them about their pracitice days. He told me and I came on that day to watch.

This group was known as „people’s cultural group“. I was afraid to ask them that I want to join, because I don’t know how they will test me. So for many months I always came and just stand behind them. Sometimes I was just standing behind the drummers, but they never asked me to go back.

One day I was earlier and only a few drummers were around busy. I picked up the bell and supported the rhythm they were playing. They played Agbadza and I knew it. One of them asked me where I come from. I told them, that I am from Nima. The leader introduced himself to me as Atsou Hehealolo. He told me, if I am interested in the group, they start rehearsal around 5 pm. If I could come earlier he can teach me. So I did.

I got knowledge of all the rhythms of the ten regions of Ghana with the bell. I played two years only the bell in the group. I sometimes felt shy, becaues everywhere we went I was behind the bell.

One day we have to perform in Nima and I asked the leader, if I could today play the kaganu, one of the supporting drum. He then laughed and told me, that I am not ready yet. You will one day sit behind the drums, if I can see that you arrived. He continued accusing me that I watch the bell as a shameful instrument, while I supposed to learn, that this is the leading instrument in the group. This instrument is keeping the rhythm and drive the music. Every music we play with the bell in, the bell is leading. There I felt a bit proud but still disappointed.

Today as a music teacher I tell my students exactly the same and understand their disappointed feelings very well.

Peter John Kofi Donkor

Memories

On the 24th June we took part in the integration festival in Muri. The performance was great and you can really feel it in the audience. In the end of the festival I saw how people united, conversing with each other and it didn’t matter were you come from. That reminded me what music was doing in our area district in Accra some years ago.

Some years ago there was a misunderstanding among the young people of the area, which affected us so much for many years. We could not use some ways  and they were also banned of using our passages. Everywhere we meet, there was a tension.

There is a traditional music called Bobobo . Anywhere we heard this music, we the boys from the area were dancing, because it was touching so much with its rhythms and dance. The Bobobo rhythm and dance was like a disco for us. We didn’t get this music often, so everytime we heard the bobobo music in a different area, we even will walk one hour to go and dance it.

One day we went to Kotobabi, an area in Accra, where bobobo was playing. They had there own dancers, but we danced around the music with a lot of audience. Suddenly we saw our neighbours, which we are not fine with them. Their group was also there to dance. We are all dancing, but our eyes were wide open on both sides. You can feel the tension was very high from both sides. Non of the audience and the bobobo group knew about our problem.

Then one of their member approached my colleague with a very strong dance movement. He then responded with weaked steps. Their conversation with the dance draw the attention of the audience. They started to cheer and clap for the two. That incouraged us to form a circle around them. Everybody was giving his colleague a support. One of the other group came and took over in the middle of the circle. One of our member also went and took over. It became like a tiny competition, but with a lot of laughing and cheering from the audience. Many of the audience know our group as artists. So they belived we are going to win. We understand the bobobo rhythm and its movments very well. Mostly we were dancing according to the leading drummer. But our opponent didn’t know anything about this bobobo. They just danced freestyle. Some weaked movements which were coming from them was getting more fans from the audience than we did. Sometimes we even were impressed about their dance. This went on for hours.

Suddely a song came out from the bobobo group, which is standing for unity and love. We all respond it with loud voice. This song was a very popular song and everybody knew it.

We then danced in a circle according to style each person will bring.

We danced together until the bobobo group closed. We all, our enemy neighbours and we sang together and walked to our area. We reached our area, continued singing together and we led them to their area and continued singing there.

Since this day, all the tension which was inbetween us and disturbed us so much and we were afraid of each other, vanished without judgement. We became good friends till now.

This is the value of the traditional music with its movements and songs. It heals wounds and brings togetherness. It is  touching me so much and makes me happy, if I remember that it is „only“ bobobo music and dance who brought us together again. The song enter our mind and we sang it with joy and happyness which opened our mind. None of us even made any comment about the past. It was just like washed away.

The reason why I am telling this memories is: as I went last time to Ghana in 2011 I saw our youth getting interested back into traditional music and movements. They just do it as fun. I am asking my fellow artists to also share their ideas on the line with our youth to get a better understanding about traditional music.

I learned a lot from a group called Sankofa, Ghana dance ensemble, Kokrobite academy obonu group, school of performing arts and panafrican orchestra. And many groups from Greater Accra Region.

We followed the footsteps of many artists of Ghana. Why don’t we share ideas with the youth as they are using the internet more than we do. They might come a across your website or blogg to read and learn something from it. I am asking all artists which some of them I know personally, we should bring our talent out. We should not be scarred of the media and think somebody will take it. Nowadays everything is in the net.

You can even read about the archive of your little village in Africa in the net.

We should try to be open.

If you use your ingrediant and bake a cake. Then you find out someone has baken the same cake with a different color, you have two possibilities and benefit. The possiblity 1 is, change some ingrediants and bake another one. The 2. possibility is to add more. Its benefit is to get creativity.

 John Kofi Donkor

BOBOBO-DANCE-BEAT

Bakatue, Panafest, Fetu Afayhe

The special occasions this year 2012 are the celebration of  festivals Bakatue in Elmina, Panafest, Homowo in Accra and Fetu Afahye in Cape Coast.

The Bakatue Festival of Elmina starts in the first week of July. On Monday there is a special celebration. In the evening will be the traditional Akom dance. On Tuesday is the official opening day for the festival. That is where they are going to perform traditional rituals to open the lagoon to the sea. In this tradition the fishermen take an important role to race with their canoo in various teams. the best four will go to the finals. The winning team gets a special gift and they are the heroes of the year.

You can observe some men in white cloths, wo perform all the tradtitional activities on that day in front of the lagoon. One of them will carry leaves and other ingredients in a special tray on his head. They will walk to the water and enter the lagoon with the leaves and important ingredients. the men will sink to the ground of the lagoon with the tray and leave the items there. Only the empty tray will be brought up by the men. Tuesdays are special days for the people in Ghana. It is the day of the sea. That means no fishing no swimming. We leave the sea in peace. Afterwards they perform a ritual and pour libation. The chiefs and queen mothers will be in thei palanquins, elders and liguists will walk. This durbar will be accompanied with our traditional fontomfrom instruments. We all end up in the Elmina Park infront of the Castle. the musicians perform and the paramount chief gives speach. Sometimes the president of Ghana will be there by himself. If he can't come, one of his ministers will be there. It will be the official opening day. Now the parties go on all over Elmina and even spread to the rural areas.


Panafest it is special Festival held every two years in Ghana celebrating "the bringing Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora together " (from the official Panafest homepage). It is hold in many places all over Ghana and its activities is traditional music and art mixed with modern music and art and discussion. If you are interested in african music and art, this is the right place for you this year.

Additional in the end of the Panafest a big festival known as Ogua Fetu Afahye is held in Cape Coast. Powerful traditional activies will be showed there. On Thursday will be the traditional priest dance in the middle of Cape Coast. Ths is one of thoses special strong days of the festival, which opens the way and strengthen other activities to take part. When all those celebrations are over on Saturday it will be the day of all the chiefs, queenmothers linguist and elders and warrior groups will come together. The durbar will heat up on Cape Coast London bridge, where the symbol of the crab is standing. There you can see the strength of the warriors with their drum communication and waving of the flags. Every Asafo group is showing its warrior‘s power with their own waving style of the flag. Each movement gives message to the other groups.

Some years ago I saw a beautyful communication between the chief and its drummers and the palanquin carriers. The drummers where communicating with the chief so much so that in the end they heated up the chief and he was dancing with energy in his palanquin. The carriers received this energy and started to move the palanquin with dance steps. The drummers heat it more up. In the end it became a competition in between them. This you have to witness by yourself.

In the end of the festival everybody is meeting in the victoria parc near the castle and sea side with a lot of activities going on.

In August we celebrate the Homowo harvest festival in Accra. Homowo means in the Ga language "to hoot at hunger".  Before this festival the traditional priests put a ban on drumming and on loud music for one month in Greater Accra. You can feel the silence of Accra every year in this special month. The wulomas and the traditional priests will go round and make sure, nobody will brake the ban. I saw them several times in my area Nima, because this is a migrant district of Accra. The people there come from all over Africa and you can hear 24hours music.

Twins play also a very important role in this festival. There will be a special performance for them. My favourit part of the festival is the kpekple. this is a special food out of cornflour and the red palmnutoil. The priests will spread this food around on special places in Accra. They offer it to the spirits. If you have friends among the Ga people, then you can enjoy the Kpekple with its special taste and soup with different sorts of fish, crabs and other seafood. It often goes with palmnutsoup or red oil sauce. The party then will also take part in Osu, the chiefs palace and other parts of Accra. You will see beautiful and coulorful dresses, traditional material and hairdresses from the Ga-people.

Come and enjoy these powerful festival with us. It is for all of us.


 This year all of them are held after each other.

Bakatue-Festival of Elmina: Part 6 « benefits of festivals »

In the beginning of the festival we wer all so busy that we concentrated on the activities, our eyes don’t want to look anywhere else. In the end of the festival, the chief and the queenmothers in their palanquin, elders and linguists infront of them leaving the parc back to the palace. There the party time starts. All the spots are playing loud music. It is nice to see that even some of the chiefs are dancing towards the modern music coming from the spots.

All of us are exhausted, but with happyness. So we relax and look for a nice spot to enter. Many spots are full already and you can feel how people also relax and enjoy the coming evening.

This will go on the whole night and some of them will even continue till the morning.

We found a good spot and sat down. We meet a lot of people inside. Ghanaians, Americans, British, Chinese, Japanese and people from the Diaspora. As we sat down and enjoy some cool drink, we started conversing with the people in the spot. We were mostly interested of how the people from outside Elmina few this festival. And we always got very positive answers.

A group of young American girls came in and they were beaming as they entered. We didn’t know why, but we felt they enjoyed the festival and they were just happy. They came closer to the other Americans inside and they were all greeting eachother very loud. It came out, that they all were neighbours in America, knew eachother by seeing on the street, but never really greeted eachother or had any conversations. In this evening you saw them there with surprise and happyness  from their faces and their conversation was just flowing and they started exchange their email numbers.

We enjoyed watching them and the fact, that people meet in a festival and start to speak to eachother. We left them and also joined our other friends and conversed with them the whole evening.

This reminded me of some years ago in the same festival, I meet a lot of friends which I knew in my childhood and I lost contact with them, because of travelling. And I remember how happy we were in this day to meet again and talk to eachother.

For me this festival is a place you can learn a lot of new traditional things which you are not familiar with and take part, understand it in a deeper way. This festival is also the moment of a high inspiring time. Specially this evening after is made for thinking, taking and rewinding all what you have witnessed in the last few days. That makes you to understand things.

Come to Ghana and enjoy Elmina Bakatue Festival! Meet our royals and elders! Join the people of Elmina !

 Come and watch our special fishmarket and learn how to bargain and buy your own fish. We go then together to buy the ingrediants and cook the Ghanaian traditional food in the traditional kitchen. It is very tasty! You can experience how your own power produce a nice tasty tradtional Ghanian dish.

If you are interested you can join also the farmers on their fields and learn how they plant and harvest the traditional food.

There are many places to go, specially the village Eguafo has a lot of historical background to understand the central region.

You can watch here the latest video of Elmina Bakatue Festival:
http://www.youtube.com/kofimusicful

general:   www.african-music-dance.com

Bakatue-Festival of Elmina: Part 5 „Experiences“

From childhood on being in the audience, watching the festival Bakatue for many years, now taking part in Bakatue with performances and report, that really pushed me to dive into the festival so much.  The more I report about Bakatue, the more it gives me memories of my past. I can see now, formally I didn’t understand it so much I just watched it and enjoyed it.

I remember the warrior groups called Asafo groups: Wombir and Ankobia. I followed them to many places of their performances. Each of their songs tells you which mood they are in. There are songs, which let you feel the strength of the warriors. On their way, everywhere when they reached a special place, they sang a special song. Some of their songs will really let you shivering. And songs which let you realize, that they are on fire.

Anytime they are arriving in the final performing place, they have a special song of appreciation which shows how strong they are. If they enter the music fields it became a bit a challenge with all the other groups. You can really feel the strength of those warriors. Each of them are singing songs about their ancestors and their great warriors. Being among them as a youngster, their spirit touched me so much, that I felt pulled into their mood.

Dancing Asafo music is with understanding a lot of proverbs from the rhythm. You have to be able to understand the language oft he drummer speaking with his drum to you.

I remember once I was dancing and all the elders were surrounding me, blocking anyone not to get closer to me. I did not know why, but I felt like it is a kind of protection.

After all the activites coming back home, they get to know their position. Who was first and strong in its performances. The important part of this performances is the one who is waving the flag. The movemnt oft he flag tells a story. That’s how they find out who is strong and who did well.  Especially most of the time the Asafo group of our village Egufo had good results. You  could hear their songs on their way coming back home. The good mood was carried along. The enjoyment was good.

On that day, when I was dancing, we arrived back in the village, one man called Kobena driver rised me up there and they chanted towards me. I felt like anytime they will go somewhere I will follow them. I did not know my dance steps until one elderly person was telling me, that I was communicating with the drummer so much inside the rhythms and the dancesteps, it became a challenge and that’s why they blocked the others. Since then I was not going with only one Asafo group. If Wombir was going, I followed. If Ankobia is going I was among.

With all these experiences, being among Bakatue and other festivals, everywhere I was, I got good understanding. The best part of it was, I learned their language on the drum.

Anytime I am there and I want to take part in the dancing and druming, I can respond with them.

I remember so much the day of the traditional priests dance. When none of them were on trance yet, they watched around and chose somebody in the audience, gave their special dancing broom to the person and you have to go and dance. Suddenly I have this broom on my lap. With the present of my wife, my daughter and other relatives form the village, I was really shocked, because I don’t wanted to go and desgrace myself. So I run to the priest and kneel down and told her, that I appreaciate her request, but I cannot dance the Akom dance. She then told me, thats why you have the broom in your hand.

I often watched the Akom dance, but I never danced it before. Suddenly I remmber I have to bow infront of the priest and then bow infront of the chiefs, bow infront of the drummers and before I move my steps I suddenly remember the Asafo dance.

I went one round and the fear in me turned into joy and I became so confident and came out with steps which I could not reproduce it any more. I could see, that I find the communication with the drummer very well. After some few minutes I brought the broom back, but they didin’t take it and I have to go another round.

With that cheers of the audience, I could not say no. I bow to the drummer and the movements start. This round I felt more comfortable and remembered some movements from the priests. I went one round and changed the steps into their dancing. I could see the priests from far, they were suprised. I was a bit scarred and cut it short, went and kneel down infront of them and wanted to give the broom back. Again they didn’t accepted it and they wanted me to repeat the second dance again. In my head I felt I went and caused some trouble now to myself. I watched the drummer with a sad face. The drummer then took a rhythm I knew very much from my village Eguafo. So I danced very strong and powerful and end it with the traditional priest‘s dance. The head of the priest hugged me three times and took the broom. If my family was not sitting there,  I think from the stage the journey will be to home. I felt so heavy and scarred.  As I sat down I was shaking. I saw some people from the Diaspora came just before I started the dancing and after my dance one of them also got the broom and has to dance. He did  so well and the audience was also on his side. After this man came and sat down again, three people from the priests got into trance.

 As I was sitting down there I could understand, that the priests don’t just give the broom to anybody. They watch and choose. With our funny dance we heated up the audience and a lot of laughing was around. Just for me I was thinking that we opened the way for the spirit to arrive on that event.

Afterwards I had to go with my family and sit in a spot to release the heavyness. It was something which I cannot explain, but I felt like I am not on my feet.

Everytime I am in the music field or teaching music, I use this influence also into my class. That helps both me and my students with a good understanding of music language: the communication of the drumming and the dancing.

John Kofi Donkor