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Ballads & Beats:
The Fleet ‘Ballads & Beats’ project ended in October with the launch
of the CDROM from the project at
Church
Crookham Junior School. Two schools are definitely continuing the
work as whole-school, curriculum-time projects and will get together
regularly to have joint concerts and to exchange ideas and
repertoire.
Songs, Drums & Drones:
Songs, Drums & Drones has had two very successful outings in very
different settings, showing the adaptability of the project. One was
as a staff diversity training day at the Open University, and the
other was a 3-day project, combining this with AfroBhangraCeilidh
with a group of special needs 16 – 18 pupils at
Slated
Row Special School in Wolverton, Milton Keynes. Discussions are
ongoing to spread this project more widely
AfroBhangra Ceilidh:
We will be presenting an extended version of this project in
Plymouth in July 2009.
AfroCeilidh:
A
very well-attended and enthusiastically-participated-in event was
held in
Nottingham on November 13th, as part of the City’s Black History
season. Musa’s brother Yusupha, who lives in Nottingham, joined the
band, as did a young Indian percussionist called Sameer Bhutt.
Enquiries have now started coming for AfroCeilidh from other
authorities, eager to bring black and white communities together.
Back to the Isle of
Wight!
Roger and Musa are engaged in a project led by Musiko Musika, featuring
their former One World Band and Boka Halat colleague, Mauricio
Venegas. The project is teaching songs from 3 different cultures to
children in First and Middle schools on the Isle of Wight, and to
their parents and other members of the community.
The final week long
residency will take place in June. The project will
culminate in a large concert at the Medina Theatre, Newport on 27th June 2009.
Village Hall Shows
The
band ventured over the border (just) into Wales on 15th November
with a workshop and Village Hall Show package at Glasbury-on-Wye.
‘Night Out’, Arts Council Wales’ rural touring scheme has shown
interest in more work from Boka Halat. The participants were
certainly pleased. Here is an extract from an email by someone who
attended both workshop and show:
”I
just wanted to say a huge thank you for the absolutely fantastic day
we had with you in Glasbury on Saturday. I have to admit that I
have never been keen on dancing and I know I don't dance well, so I
was a bit of a reluctant attendee! However my wife … loves both
dancing and drumming, I run the bar at Glasbury Arts events and we
are close friends of [the organisers] - so I came along to the
workshop for those reasons.
”But,
what a mistake would I have made by missing it? The workshop dealt
with my doubts and inhibitions - and at the evening event, for the
absolutely first time in my life (I'm 53), I felt the music and the
rhythm of the dance get to me and was lost in the pleasures of it. …
I didn't miss a single dance …. and the whole experience was totally
exhilarating. Not least in this was having the experience of so
many people doing, and enjoying, a dance that we had helped to
devise earlier in the day.”
Live & Local have
asked for us again next season and in May we made a return to the
East Midlands circuits with shows in Notts. and Lincs, in
October 2009 we also return to Norfolk via Creative Arts East
Roger Watson & Musa Mboob:
The
acoustic duo of Roger and Musa continues to make forays into the
folk club scene. A gig at the Guildford Folk Club in January 2009 elicited a fantastic audience response and a glowing review.
Club Organiser Lawrence Heath said of the gig "a quite
extraordinary night of fabulous music...........a revelation to many
and joy for all."
Advance
Boka Halat full band will be
appearing at on
of Lawrence's Godalming Borough Hall Ceilidhs in November |
