Philly's Own Kulu Mele to Perform Tomorrow in Queens, NY

Kulu Mele African American Dance and Drum Ensemble, & Soul Steps
Queensbridge Park, Queens NY
Saturday, August 1, 2009
FREE Masters class at 4:00 p.m., Performance at 5 p.m.

Founded over four decades ago by the great African drummer, Baba Robert Crowder, Kulu Mele African American Dance & Drum Ensemble is the longest running African dance company in Philadelphia. Performances include an exotic blend of music and dance of Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and African American heritage. Soul Steps specializes in the live performance, artistic instruction, and educational outreach of African-based step dance. Under the direction of Maxine Lyle, Soul Steps delivers spirited performance steeped in the personal and cultural stories of the Soul Steps artists and the generations of ancestors they represent. Masters class before the show is for all ages, and is free.

African Diversity

This is the adult intellectual counterpart to "Africa is Not a Country" by Margy Burns Knight. Peacemaking Through the Arts (PTA) used this children's book by Knight last year to teach children in after school programs about the continent of Africa.

Rahman’s favorite phrase right now (he has those quite often) is “I make sorry waa!” (“I make” is high tone, “sorry waa” is low tone.) It’s pidgin for “I don’t really care but I’ll sarcastically pretend to feel bad for you.”

So the other day my students were whining about all the assignments I gave them and finally I couldn’t help myself, I let out a “I make sorry waa!” and they were so surprised. “Ei! Ms. Tran speaks pidgin?! It must be the waakye.” Yeah I eat a lot of waakye. They don’t sell waakye near where I work because I work in the ritzy part of town (Labone) that charges 10 GHC for banku and mostly sells foreign stuff (hamburgers, Kentucky Fried Chicken, sandwiches with shrimp in them, and who knows what else), so the kids make fun of me for bringing my 1 GHC waakye-in-a-bag from home.

Yesterday I got to see two of my Legon peeps which was nice. One was my friend Jeremy (the one who took me to his home town for the chief’s durbar and took me to the place with the biggest tree in West Africa which was not as big as you would think the biggest tree in West Africa would be. He is also the one who watches tons-o of anime and gave me a very detailed synopsis of Naruto over several nights) and the other was my friend Courage (the one who taught me how to say "I'll walk all over your face" in Twi the first time I met him).

P.S. For those who don't know, I'm working as the Education Fellow at Ivy League Consult Africa, a private learning center in Accra, Ghana that focuses on international admissions.

Penn's Landing African Festival

On Saturday August 1st, the African Cultural Alliance of North America, in collaboration with PECO and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation, will present the 2nd African Festival on the great plaza at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia from 2-8pm. Performing artists include Gebah Swaray, K.K. Fofu, Balawala Malawala,
Universal Dance & Drumming Ensemble, the Liberian Cultural Dance & Drumming
Troupe, and many more.

Vendors of food, merchandise and resource information are welcome to apply. Sponsors are also welcome. Call 215-729-8225...ext. 102. For more information, email
Voffee Jabateh or Abe Walker.

Google: Africa

Don't worry, Google is everywhere. They were even in Ghana for President Obama's visit. Maybe Rachel can fill us in on what it was like from an insider's perspective.

Check out the Google Africa Blog.