Dancers groove at Music Haven
Monday, July 9, 2012
By John Enger (Contact)
Gazette Reporter
Music Haven Concert Series at Central Park in Schenectady on Sunday, July 8, 2012.
SCHENECTADY — The driving rhythm of a dozen djembes echoed from swing sets to waterfront in Schenectady’s Central Park on Sunday evening.
As the sun slipped behind the trees, pedestrians were drawn in by the sound, some right up onto the Music Haven stage to smack a drum themselves.
“Sometimes drums are like medicine,” said Zorkie Nelson, who led the open drum circle kicking off Music Haven’s summer concert series. “Unhappiness can be like a disease. The drums will make you smile, laugh. They’ll give you energy. Take you far away.”
Nelson specializes in teaching the rhythms he learned in Ghana from the age of 7 to non-drummers, which is exactly what he did for those brave enough to join him onstage.
“It was very meditative,” said Wiatt Waterman, of Schenectady. “I didn’t even know I was onstage.”
But the joyous rhythm didn’t stop when Nelson wiped the sweat from his forehead and left the stage.
He was just the opening act for Diblo Dibala, a guitar player from the Congo, and his band.
The four-man group plays a type of music called soukous, meaning “shake” which Mona Golub, Music Haven artistic director, calls “joyous and effervescent.”
The crowd that overflowed from rows of garden chairs to lawn chairs and picnic blankets on the grass grooved in unison when Dibala picked the first song to life.
“You can dance any way you want to this music,” said Alex Boicel, the band manager. “Watch, by the end of the night, everyone here will be up there dancing.”
Even as he spoke, several women felt the need to move more than their chairs allowed and made their way forward.
According to Boicel, African dance music of Dibala’s style was popular in the U.S. in the decades before Sept. 11, 2001, when the cost of flights and border problems made it harder for bands to travel.
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2012/jul/09/music-haven-groove-0709/
Logged
