Arts of Africa festival part of AMAM Family Day

Weekend event to showcase variety of arts

This Saturday will provide an easy and inexpensive way for Oberlin students and residents to experience African culture. This weekend the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is holding its second Family Day.

The theme of Family Day is "The Arts of Africa." During the day children and adults alike can enjoy art projects including mask-making and learning hieroglyphics. Other features will include African drumming and dance, storytelling of African fables and folktales and demonstrations of traditional African instruments.

There is one Family Day per semester. Education Intern Nathalie Ryan and Education Co-ordinator Megan Burness started the program to make the museum more accessible to the public. "There is plenty to do for college students but our inital audience was the community," said Ryan.

According to Professor of Ethnomusicology Roderic Knight, Family Day is "part of an ongoing educational effort by the museum. Last year it was focused on Japan." Knight said that the museum is trying to reach children. He said that a number of the activites for children will be hands-on.

One of the activities that children can do with their parents is touring the museum's art collection. The AMAM has 33 works of African art in the gallery, and gallery sheets with maps will be provided for self-guided tours. Items in the gallery include a Nimba mask created by the Baga people of Guinea, an ivory saltcellar from Sierra Leone, and a brass leopard mask from the kingdom of Benin in southern Nigeria. "Ancient Egyptian and West African art is the strength of our collection," said Ryan. "The pieces are really good examples of particular tribes."

In addition to touring the museum, participants can listen to live music provided by Michael Oladipo Oludare and his Ilu Asa Yoruba Band, an Oberlin College drum troupe. In the afternoon, the band will be accompanied by Dance Diaspora, a traveling dance troupe associated with the African-American Studies deparment. According to Faculty-in-residence Ade Sharpley, teacher of Dance Diaspora, Saturday's performance will be extremely traditional. "Michael Oladipo Oludare is a Dun-dun player from Yoruba - a region in southwest Nigeria," she said. "He's an artist, a drummer, and a wood carver. . . Dun-dun is traditional Yoruba court drumming."

The afternoon musical performance will feature a tap dancer who will be improvising while Michael Oladipo Oludare plays the Dun-dun. Sharpley says that they will be speaking to each other and improvising together. Although the performance will be mostly traditional, Sharpley charcterized this particular piece as "traditional vs. new age." Instrument demonstrations are the other musical component of the day. Senior Rhona Campbell, who is a percussion performance and ethnomusicology major, will demonstrate the mbira, a type of piano with metal or reed "keys" originally associated with the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Senior Micha Patri will discuss West African drumming and demonstrate the djembe drums. Patri is studying jazz percussion and African-American studies; he has also studied West African drumming with master drummers in Cleveland and accompanies African dance groups on campus.

Professor of Ethnomusicology Roderic Knight, a specialist in the music of the Mandinka, will demonstrate the kora, a 21-string bridge harp from West Africa. Knight has spent over three years in Africa and has done extensive research on the kora, which is played by the Mandinka people of Senegal, Guinea, Gambia, and Mali.

Storytelling will round out the assemblage of featured artists. Barbara Eady, a specialist in African and African American folktales, fables, and literary works, will perform. Eady is dedicated to the Oral Tradition, and is the President of the Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers.