back to the concerts list »
Saturday, November 13, 8:00 pm Littlefield Concert Hall
AFRICA, AFRICA
Powerful double bill of African music featuring the brilliant performer, choreographer, composer and scholar CK Ladzekpo, and Master drummer Thione Diop from Senegal.
C.K Ladzekpo is the director of the African music program at the University of California at Berkeley, and also teaches the African Drumming class in the Mills College Music Department. He has combined a brilliant career as a performer, choreographer and composer with teaching and extensive scholarly research into African performing arts. He is a member of a famous family of African musicians and dancers who traditionally serve as lead drummers and composers among the Anlo-Ewe people of southeastern Ghana in West Africa. C.K. Ladzekpo has been a lead drummer and instructor with the Ghana National Dance Ensemble, the University of Ghana's Institute of African Studies, and the Arts Council of Ghana. He joined the music faculty of the University of California at Berkeley in 1973 and remains an influential catalyst of the African perspective in the performing arts. In 1973 he founded the critically acclaimed African Music and Dance Ensemble. As the company's artistic director, choreographer, and master drummer, he has led in many pioneering African dance and polyrhythmic percussion ensemble music presentations at major venues in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has been artistic director of the Mandeleo Institute in Oakland since 1986. C.K. Ladzekpo's modern concert stage rendition of Atsiagbeko, a traditional war dance drumming suite of the Anlo-Ewe is one of the features in the television documentary "African Dance at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival" which continues to be a popular broadcast since its national premiere in 1988 on PBS. CK has received a number of awards for his work including: National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer's Fellowship (1988-1989); Irvine Choreographer's Fellowship (1999); and Ruth Beckford Extraordinary People In Dance Award (1999). CK has been a member of the faculty council of the East Bay Center for Performing Arts (Richmond CA) since 1974.
http://home.comcast.net/~dzinyaladzekpo/
Thione Diop, Master drummer from Senegal, West Africa, is widely recognized for his powerfully expressive Djembe performances. Thione has shared the stage with such noteworthy musicians as Poncho Sanchez, Alpha Blondy, Prince Diabate and Max Romeo. Thione Diop and his group Yeke Yeke are well known from their many regional appearances in the U.S. and Canadian Northwest. Thione has also toured in Japan joined by his brother Gora Diop, traditional griot drummer and master of the Djun Djun. In Senegal, Thione has collaborated with renowned griot artists Babou Laye Cissokho; master Kora player, Thierno Kouyate; Orchestra Baobab saxophonist, Thierno Ba; Xalam master, Samba Ndoc Tama player for Cheikh Lo and singer Abdoulaye N'Diaye on a number of tracks. A track from one of his most recent collaborations, Samba Griot, co-produced by Thione and Lynette Wich, is featured in the film The Heartbreak Kid. Thione has also organized and produced regional events such as The Spirit of West Africa Festival, bringing Senegalese and other West African artists to northwest audiences, and is co-producing a documentary film, Modern Day Griots with director Malika Weeden.
http://www.myspace.com/thionediop
http://www.youtube.com/user/thionediopmusic
