Hayor Bibimma Dance

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Hayor Bibimma Artist Residency Programs

Francis Kofi with residency students Overview:
Over the course of the residencies, students & teachers will be encouraged to participate in the discovery of West African drumming, dance & storytelling. West African culture is rich with symbols, rituals, conflict, history and opportunity. The metaphor of West African music and dance allows students to experience the culture in a rhythmic and physical realm. My comprehensive programs involve elements of dance and music but from perspective of transforming traditional music and movement into contemporary statements of change and hope. Students will experience and learn traditional songs and dances. During the residencies, there will be optimal moments for storytelling and for revealing to students the history of the dance and rituals within the authentic context of a ethnic community/classroom gathering.

Objectives:
- Students will understand the significance and meaning of gestures and movements used in traditional West African dance.
- Students will learn to execute the movements of a basic traditional dance.
- Students will be introduced to the basic elements of traditional drumming rhythms and the nuances of drum language.
- Students will learn the words, meaning and melody of a traditional call and response songs and participate in singing.
- Students will perform as a whole group the dance and songs.
Francis Kofi with residency students Relationship with schools and community:
Knowledge is gained through experience. Respect is earned by accomplishment. Self knowledge and self respect is attained when one is given the opportunity to try something unknown and the freedom to explore it and make it familiar, to make it your own. By reaching out into the schools and community, Francis Kofi offers the public the chance to know, feel, try, learn and appreciate music and dance which may or may not be customary and make it recognizable and distinctive. In this way, He will realize its’ ambition by sharing his passion of African music and dance. For tradition does not stand still, it moves onward to influence the future.

Contact:
For more information about our traditional West African dance, drum and storytelling residencies please contact us by email at fkaziati@hotmail.com or call us at 612-840-2745.