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- Theresa Hartford is heart stage Friday within the Lake Placid Elementary Faculty fitness center taking part in a West African drum in entrance of Yunga Webb, left, Seny Daffe, center, and her husband Dian Oury Bah. Daffe and Bah are initially from the West African nation of Guinea. (Enterprise photograph — Andy Flynn)
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- From left, North Nation Faculty Director of Range, Fairness and Inclusion Yunga Webb speaks to Lake Placid Elementary Faculty college students Friday morning previous to a West African drumming efficiency by Theresa Hartford, Dian Oury Bah and Seny Daffe. Bah and Daffe are initially from the West African nation of Guinea. (Enterprise photograph — Andy Flynn)
Theresa Hartford is heart stage Friday within the Lake Placid Elementary Faculty fitness center taking part in a West African drum in entrance of Yunga Webb, left, Seny Daffe, center, and her husband Dian Oury Bah. Daffe and Bah are initially from the West African nation of Guinea. (Enterprise photograph — Andy Flynn)
LAKE PLACID — The Lake Placid Elementary Faculty gymnasium Friday morning was crammed with the rhythmic sounds of West African music — drumming and singing — as college students, school and employees listened and danced to songs from 4 musicians.
Dian Oury Bah — grasp drummer and musical director of Badenyah Drum & Dance — was taking part in drums along with his spouse, Theresa Hartford, and longtime pal Seny Daffe, a Burlington, Vermont, resident who taught drumming within the African dance firm Jeh Kulu. Bah and Daffe are initially from Guinea on the West African coast.
And Hartford?
“Maine,” she informed the LPES college students in grades 3 via 5.
Hartford and Bah at present stay in Saranac Lake.
From left, North Nation Faculty Director of Range, Fairness and Inclusion Yunga Webb speaks to Lake Placid Elementary Faculty college students Friday morning previous to a West African drumming efficiency by Theresa Hartford, Dian Oury Bah and Seny Daffe. Bah and Daffe are initially from the West African nation of Guinea. (Enterprise photograph — Andy Flynn)
The fourth musician, singer Yunga Webb, is initially from Las Vegas, Nevada, and is at present the director of variety, fairness and inclusion at North Nation Faculty and Camp Treetops in Lake Placid.
“I like educating children,” Daffe stated after the second meeting. The primary efficiency was for college kids in kindergarten via grade 2, the second for grades 3 to five.
“Seny is an unimaginable dancer and dance trainer,” Hartford stated. “He’s been in demand all up and down the coast at completely different dance conferences. We’re fortunate to have him right here at the moment.”
The troupe carried out on a wide range of West African drums, the most well-liked being the djembe, which seems to be like a big goblet. The opposite three drums are a part of a set — from bigger dimension to smallest — the dunun (additionally spelled dundun or doundoun), sangban and kenkeni. Webb taught the scholars some West African dance strikes and a conventional tune she discovered from her mom.
Requested what she likes probably the most about performing West African music, Hartford stated, “It’s my husband’s tradition, so it’s essential to us to proceed the West African tradition for him and for our little one. You possibly can’t replicate the vitality and the love that you just get from West African dance. It’s simply onerous to duplicate. There’s nothing that compares to it for me.”
