A Drum Festival for the Rest of Us
Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Hector Aviles in Blog
The recent World Rhythm Festival celebrated in Seattle is a community event that promotes musical diversity and in which the public plays an active participatory role. The Festival brings together the rhythms from various parts of the world, with everyone, from instructors to organizers working on a volunteer basis, and in which the community can attend and participate at no charge.
I was surprised by how much the public attending the festival gets to participate. Unlike the typical percussion gathering which draws master percussionists sponsored by instrument labels, this festival is for us, the non-musicians.
Because this is an all-volunteer community event, it is not advertised much. I’ve been living 9 years in the outskirts of Seattle, and only this year I came to know about this drum festival.
Seattle’s World Rhythm Festival:
This year marked the 17th World Rhythm Festival done in Seattle, and is organized and managed by the Seattle World Percussion Society (SWPS – http://www.swps.org ) a non-profit organization created to run the festival. The 2010 festival had over 70 performances and participatory workshops, highlighting rhythms from Africa, Latin America, Middle East, India, Asia, and Native America. And when I say participatory, I mean “roll-your-sleeve-up” hands-on participation.
Johnny Conga at the World Rhythm Festival
One of the workshops I attended was that of veteran “conguero” Johnny Conga. As one of the few Latin percussion sessions, Johnny Conga shared his vast knowledge Afro-Cuban rhythms and techniques. Everyone in the room had a drum provided by the festival organizers for the sessions, and after an introductory explanation of the history of the rhythm and how to go about it, the room followed the instructor’s lead. This made the workshops very fun. When I came to the Seattle Center (home of the iconic Space Needle) I had no idea I was going to be so involved in these workshops.
Carolyn Brandy at the World Rhythm Festival
Master percussionist Carolyn Brandy was very effective in her Beginning Conga session. Carolyn has traveled extensively to Cuba and has learned from the best there. The San Francisco Bay Area resident holds drum classes in SF as well as in Seattle, and participants were very eager to learn her techniques.
Besides Johnny and Carolyn there were a few Brazilian seminars, and a couple of Peruvian Cajón ones as well.
Drum Circles:
One thing I learned in the World Rhythm Festival was that there is a lot of interest in Drum Circles. Many of the instructors there (not Johnny or Carolyn, but most others) are engaged leading these groups. From what I learned, these groups provide a therapeutic individual experience, and can also serve for team building purposes. These circles use Djembe and other simple African drums, rather than congas, which are harder to master.
Pardon my ignorance, but I had no idea so many non-Latinos liked to learn drum. As I said, Latin rhythms were a minority of the events at the World Rhythm Festival. The public attending got a lot of exposure to African rhythms, and some of these Drum Circles use African rhythms in their workshops. I just barely scratched the surface on this topic, but there is lots information in the internet. From the Festival instructors, Arthur Hull (http://www.drumcircle.com) seemed to be one of the most experienced on this.
A Rhythm Festival That Should Be Emulated:
Organizing events like the World Rhythm Festival requires a lot of work. I talked to Festival Director David Chaus, and he says that the event is done mostly by community volunteers, and even the instructors volunteer their time and talent to the event. David, who is a therapist has been organizing the festival since 2006, says “there are people that came here from Brazil, from Norway, from Japan, from all over, and people know about it by word of mouth”. David says instructors volunteer to come from all over because they find “this is a community, this is home”. The festival does not depend on big stars, so many instructors are from the local community or travel and use the opportunity to run classes here. He says this festival is special because this is not about “expert clinics where you sit quietly and listen; this is a hands-on event”.
World Rhythm Festival Poster
In response to my question on how we can increase the presence of latin rhythms in the festival, David mentioned that its true that the festival has a lot of Western-African rhythms, and that we can increase the latino presence by having members of the SWPS reach out and participate in the latino community events. This integration of the communities would reflect itself in the festival.
Although this festival runs in low budget, the community volunteer involvement is outstanding. This is something that should be emulated around the world as a great means to spread the knowledge of world rhythms and use music as another way to bring our communities closer, promoting diversity by starting with music at all levels by starting with music.
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