While everyone is welcome to join the beat at an upcoming drumming workshop, diving into dance will also allow participants to share in the community culture of Africa.
Led by artist Jacky Essombe, the Dancing and Drumming workshop is a means for the artist to share the culture of her Cameroonian homeland.
“In my culture, dancing and drumming are a part of life,” said Essombe. “They are a way for us to be more in our bodies.”
Through music and body movement, Essombe said her participatory workshop helps bridge the gap between the mind and the body so common among westerners.
“People are so in their minds,” she said, “dancing provides a break from that and instills more body awareness.”
Originally from Cameroon, Essombe moved to Vancouver in 2000 after living in Paris, France, from the age of nine; a move that proved to be a rather rude awakening for someone used to being at the centre of a tightly knit social community, she said.
“In France, people are more connected, it is a very social culture,” said Essombe, “but in Vancouver it is very different. Relationships seemed, at first, to be more like transactions.”
Realizing if she wanted close community connections she would have to build them herself, Essombe took a sabbatical from her job as a Government of Canada translator and started holding healing drum workshops.
“It was a moment of personal growth,” she said. “I realized I could not wait for someone to give me what I wanted, but had to do it myself.”
Now providing workshops throughout BC and Alberta, Essombe never did go back to her job, instead she has grown in awareness about what sharing her culture means to her, she said.
“When I started to teach I remembered wisdom from my culture I had taken for granted,” she said. “Teaching forced me to question things I had never thought about.”
In order to teach about community, for example, Essombe first had to understand how differently that concept is understood in Africa.
“In Cameroon if you went up to someone and asked them to talk about their community, they wouldn’t know what you are talking about,” she said. “Community is just something naturally around us, we are held by it, we do not think of it the same way.”
Essombe said her deep respect for the sense of togetherness and community her culture can give to others made her transform her drumming workshops into a means of explaining the Cameroonian view of the world.
“I teach stories so [people] can learn a value and about our traditional way of life,” she said. “There is one song called ‘Famba,’ which means to be filled. This is a song about learning to grow food and respecting the land.”
Essombe will be performing with drummer Yoro Noukoussi. Tickets for the Dancing + Drumming workshop are $15. The event runs from 2-5:15 pm on Sunday, January 17, at Max Cameron Theatre. Drums will be provided, but spots in the workshop are limited.
In addition to the afternoon workshop, Essombe will also offer an evening Circle of Togetherness performance from 7-8:30 pm, also at Max Cameron Theatre, for a suggested donation of $5 at the door.
For more information go to maxcamerontheatre.ca or call 604.483.3900.
