Drum Dances

Commissioned by renowned percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, Psathas’ Drum Dances (1993) is a standard for drum kit and piano repertoire. Each of the four movements in this work were stimulated by a certain rhythmic interaction possible between two performers. The performers gradually transition from battling for superiority to working together throughout the work as they navigate material ranging from from a loosely-written stately dance to very tight and syncopated rhythmic interaction.

The rhythms and dances of Guinea, West Africa spring to life in this ground-breaking multimedia collection from award-winning author Kalani and noted world percussionist Ryan M. Camara! More than just a drumming book, this easy-to-use method immerses teachers and students in traditional West African music, dance and culture through a step-by-step curriculum that maintains cultural authenticity. The World Rhythms! Arts Program (WRAP) is a multiple-discipline curriculum that incorporates drumming, singing, dance, and culture. Rooted in traditional West African music and dance, WRAP helps develop essential arts and life skills through a holistic approach to music and movement education. A must for your classroom!

Since time immemorial, Inuit drum dancing songs have been used throughout the Arctic to reaffirm kinship ties, decompress from the rigors of hunting and gathering, and redirect competitive behavior. The Effects of Inuit Drum Dancing on Psychosocial Well-Being and Resilience: Productivity and Cultural Competence in an Inuit Settlement explores the sociocultural context surrounding two forms of traditional Inuit drum dancing in Ulukhaktok, an Inuit settlement in the Canadian Northwest Territories. Tim Murray uses case studies and social script analysis to argue that drum dance participation has emerged in this community as a way of supporting the psychosocial well-being of the settlement’s younger population and to explore how in the wake of colonization, drum dancing has resolidified in Ulukhaktok. Specifically, chapters examine the impacts of generational isolation and its downstream effects on the lives of settlement youth and young adults, the deployment of drum dancing as a tactical resource for modulating emotional access with elders, and its reemergence within the Ulukhaktok taskscape as a platform for reinterpreting local understandings of productivity and cultural competence.

Hiding in a lake under lily pads after fleeing U.S. soldiers, a Dakota woman was given a vision over the course of four days instructing her to build a large drum and teaching her the songs that would bring peace and end the killing of her people. From the Dakota, the "big drum" spread throughout the Algonquian-speaking tribes to the Ojibwe, becoming the centerpiece of their religious ceremonies. This edition of "The Ojibwe Dance Drum, "originally created through the collaboration of Ojibwe drum maker and singer William Bineshii Baker Sr. and folklorist Thomas Vennum, has a new introduction by history professor Rick St. Germaine that discusses the research behind this book and updates readers on the recent history of the Ojibwe Drum Dance.

The Big Drum is the lively ancient dance rite of the small island of Carriacou, Grenada. This book introduces 120 of the song texts & dances that call & entertain the ancestors who are central to Carriacou religious experience. Performed since the early 1700s, the Big Drum dance reveals an African-Caribbean religion at its inception as practiced by enslaved people & in its current expression as a vital, living aspect of Carriacou society. No other Caribbean ritual like it still exists. The author maintains that the nine coded rhythms of the boula drums hold the history of the nine African "nations" that inhabited early Carriacou, keeping alive their memories of Africa & of family lineage. In discussion of the spiritual bases of the Yoruba dances of Grenada, Trinidad, Cuba, & Jamaica, the author illustrates the connection between the liturgical symbols of danced religions & the ancient myth of "The Flying Africans." The author concludes with an analysis of a single calypso that memorializes the 1983 invasion of Grenada & illustrates the history-keeping function of the calypso & Big Drum. She uncovers a structural relationship between ancient praisesongs & modern political songs & suggests the continuing impact of music on the memory of the Caribbean people.

In The Drum: A History, drummer, instructor, and blogger Matt Dean details the earliest evidence of the drum from all regions of the world, looking at cave paintings, statues, temple reliefs, burial remains, even existing relics of actual drums that have survived for thousands of years. Highlighting the different uses and customs associated with drumming, Dean examines how the drum developed across many cultures and over thousands of years before it became the instrument we know today. A celebration of this remarkable instrument, The Drum explores how war, politics, trade routes, and religion influenced the instrument's development. Bringing its history to the present, Dean considers the modern cultural and commercial face of the drum, detailing its role in military settings and the creation of the modern drum kit, as well as the continuing evolution of the drum, manufacturers, and the increased dependence on electronic drums, sampling machines* and drum recorders. Finally, drum fans will have at their fingertips the biographies of great drummers and major drumming achievements in the history of performance. The Drum: A History will appeal to every drummer, regardless of genre or style, as well as readers with a general interest in the evolution of this universal instrument. Book jacket.

Part ethnography, part narrative, Like the Sound of a Drum is evocative, confrontational, and poetic. For many years, Peter Kulchyski has travelled to the north, where he has sat in on community meetings, interviewed elders and Aboriginal politicians, and participated in daily life. In Like the Sound of a Drum he looks as three northern communities — Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope in Denendeh and Pangnirtung in Nunavut — and their strategies for maintaining their political and cultural independence. In the face of overwhelming odds, communities such as these have shown remarkable resources for creative resistance. In the process, they are changing the concept of democracy as it is practised in Canada.

This volume is a comprehensive history of of Southern Plains powwow culture - an interdisciplinary, highly collaborative ethnography based on more than two decades of participiation in powwows - addressing how the powwow has changed over time.