Holiday Rhythm

Written by Greg Whitt Friday, 17 December 2010 00:00

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Corporate Team Building Retreat;  photo by Annelies Gentile

I wound out November drumming for the Durham Crisis Response Center at their special event for the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.  Held at the NC School of Science and Math, the event featured speakers on a variety of REALLY heavy topics.  DFC was there to lighten their spirits with an interactive rhythm, song, and dance thanks to the help of Summer Mason and Nickolas Chidester.  The song and dance were all about fostering positivity and affirming self.  Certainly we can all use a bit more of that yumyum goodness in our lives!

My sweetheart Annelies is really blossoming.  A couple of years back she worked on a documentary for UNC-TV that just aired on PBS.  The same day we attended the premier, she was featured on NPR!  Annelies was interviewed by Dick Gordon for "The Story" about her public art installation at Lake Johnson Park.  Too, she just had a great open house for her studio down on Blount Street next to Peace College and has received several commissions for copies of her oil paintings.  Annelies sold tons of her greeting cards featuring her full body of work.  She has also started a new venture into hand-embellished giclée painting.   This summer she is finishing up her degree and it looks like she'll be doing a graduate program in Switzerland that starts the following year!  The program is about using art as a means for conflict resolution and peace building.  Yeah, that's the good stuff!  Together Annelies and I tripped down to Wrightsville Beach where I led a drum circle for Bank of America at their team-building retreat (see photo above).

Annelies & Gregory at the Beach!

Two days later I spent the entire week with the 3rd Grade at Oak Grove Elementary down in Cary.  During the five-day residency, more than 125 students learned about djembe drumming in a hands-on rhythmic experience.  Kenya Snider, the music teacher there, was kind enough to lend me her classroom for the entire week.  Each day I had six classes of approximately 20 students.  Each of the six came back four days in a row.  I wore ankle bells up and down the halls;  they must've thought Santa Claus was visiting until the saw it was a guy in a dashiki.  I ate with the kids in the lunch room (boy I sure felt like a rock star) as well as the teachers in the faculty lounge.  Everyone there was hugely welcoming and supportive.  We finished up on Friday with two school assemblies where the kids got to show their stuff to the other students in the school.  AND we were blessed to be joined by Melissa Griffin and Fuz Sanderson during the show.  The kids were SO MUCH FUN!

Oak Grove Elementary School Assembly

I've been doing some more horizon-expanding, too.  Each week I teach an on-going drum class on Monday nights.  Lately I've been attempting to learn audio for home studio recording of some of the pieces we've been working on.  AND this week I got to share drumming in a new and unusual way:  I was invited to pose as a model for the life drawing class at Sertoma Arts Center. Never one to miss a marketing opportunity, I of course brought props!  I posed in bright colors, a dashiki, my djembe necklace and with my Ivory Coast drum.  Some artists sketched, some used colored pencils, some used acrylics, some water colors, and some oil paints.  While I often use my drum for meditation, in this case I had to sit perfectly still in the same position for two hours in 20-minute cycles, so I had lots of time to reflect, run drum patterns through my head, and to occupy my time and fingertips translating the classical music on their stereo into drum patterns in my mind.  The studio artists were very disciplined... they waited a full hour before asking to hear the drum!

Sertoma Arts Center Life Drawing Class;  photo by Annelies Gentile

Also, I want to share some really great news:  I just got word that I have been awarded an emerging artist grant from the United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County. This is the first year that artists from all five counties in the council applied.  This year 64 applicants asked for a total of $90k in funding.  With only $21k to award, competition was tough!  My project proposal requested funding to support a trip to Haiti.  Annelies and I are hoping to travel in June when she'll be able to tie it to study abroad credits for her degree program - examining how Haitians are using art to cope with tragedy in the aftermath of the earthquake and cholera epidemic. I'll be studying their folkloric drumming traditions.  Many thanks to the folks at United Arts for helping to make this dream come true....

Haitian Drum & Dance Sculpture - Inspiration on my Living Room Wall

Coming up:  the monthly Lake Johnson Jam community drum circle with Raleigh Parks & Recreation (see the calendar for more details) PLUS drumming with well-elders AND Parkinson's patients at Springmoor Retirement Community.  Coming in January:  a healing drum circle at Saint Anne's Chapel in Tarboro, drumming with students at Underwood Elementary School, and live drumming for yoga at SAS Institute.  OH!  The 3rd Monday Jam for January will be hosted at the home of Warren Kniskern in North Raleigh while the Lake Johnson staff enjoys a well-earned MLK Holiday.

In rhythm,

-Gregory