Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 7:30 pm Fatu Gayflor, Zaye Tete, Kormassa Bobo, and Gbahtuo Comgbaye Music, dance, and storytelling from former members of the Liberian National Cultural Troupe now living in Philadelphia (and some of their local students).
Crossroads Music 48th and Baltimore Ave. (in Calvary United Methodist Church) http://www.crossroadsconcerts.org or 215-729-1028 Tickets are $10, $5 discount, $15 for supporters, $5 for 12 and under. Tens of thousands of Liberians now live in West and Southwest Philadelphia ˆ more than in any other city outside of Africa ˆ and among them are some of the country's finest singers, dancers, and storytellers. At Crossroads, singers Fatu Gayflor and Zaye Tete, dancer Kormassa Bobo, and storyteller Gbahtuo Comgbaye will present a program of storytelling, dance, and music that will also include participation members of the audience and from some of the young people who have been studying with them here in Philadelphia. Fatu Gayflor started to sing as a child in her home village of Kakata, in northwestern Liberia. A member of the Lorma ethnic group, she was instructed in ritual and songs, and in playing the sasa (sekere), as part of the Sande society as a young girl. In 1978, the Liberian National Cultural Troupe (a dance and music performance ensemble) recruited the 12-year-old Fatu to come to Keneja, the national art village, where she studied traditional praise songs, wedding songs, laments, and so on. She learned songs from 16 ethnic groups across Liberia, and became a lead singer for the Troupe and toured in Liberia and internationally. She recorded her first two albums in Liberia, singing traditional songs with both local and imported instruments to appeal to younger Liberians. Her third recording was made in the Ivory Coast, where she lived for a while in a refugee camp following the eruption of the civil war in Liberia. In that recording, guitars and synthesizers are used a s well because the producers in the Ivory Coast wanted to give the traditional melodies a world beat sound. These records are widely known and beloved among dispersed Liberian communities: in Liberia, Fatu was known as "Princess Fatu Gayflor, the golden voice of Liberia." Having lived in the Ivory Coast and in Guinea (also as a refugee), she sings traditional songs of many places. Now a resident of the U.S., she performs for Liberian ceremonies and celebrations in North America. She has performed in the Philadelphia Folklore Project's Philly Dance Africa program and taught at the Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School. Zaye Tete, a singer and dancer, was born in Toweh Town, Nimba County in northeastern Liberia, where her parents and 12 siblings grew coffee and cocoa. She learned traditional dance and song from her father and, along with one of her sisters, performed on the occasion of the birth of a child, the visit of a dignitary, and on feast days following a death. who was a performer as well. In the 1970s, Liberian President William Tolbert saw Zaye perform on a visit to Nimba County and invited her to go join the National Cultural Troupe as a dancer. At the artists' village Kendeja, the 13-year-old, who then knew only her Dan language, studied both English and other academic subjects and singing and dancing from Liberia's other ethnic groups. At the end of the first year at Kendeja, she returned home to study with the Sande Society few months. There she was instructed in the history and proper social relations of the Dan people and learned and performed more traditional songs and dances. After a director of the Troupe overheard her singing Sande Society songs, she was trained as a solo singer as well as a dancer and toured nationally and internationally with the Troupe. In 1990, when the civil war reached the capital, she fled Kendeja on foot, reaching her family in Nimba County two months later. From there she crossed the border to the Ivory Coast. She stayed in Danane refugee camp in Liberia until November 2002, when war broke out in the Ivory Coast. At that time, she escaped to Ghana, where she lived in another camp until she emigrated to the U.S., in the summer of 2004. While in the Ivory Coast, she started a Liberian children's cultural troupe, recruiting kids from the refugee schools. With the help of an international non-governmental organization, she set up a practice hall, found other musicians and dancers to help with the training, and produced and sang and danced in performances in the camp, for the birth of a child, for arrivals of friends or relatives, and so on. Here in the U.S. she performs at Liberian celebrations and clubs. Born into a family known for its skill in dance and music, Kormassa Bobo has been dancing since she was a child. After ten years with with her father's Monigee Dance Troupe in Lofa County, she joined the new Liberian National Dance Troupe organized by the president of Liberia when she was 14, and mastered traditional dances of Liberia's sixteen ethnic groups. She rose to become the troupe's matron, with responsibility for the care and teaching of female children and young women in the ensemble. She came to the United States in 1993 and danced with the Liberian Dance Troupe in New York and the Nimely Pan-African Dancers in Minnesota before coming to Philadelphia in 1995. Here she founded her own ensemble. A skilled teacher and a gripping and dynamic dancer, Ms. Bobo performs and teach the Moonlight dance, the sande dance, the dances of the Lorma (her own group), the female dance from Lofa County, the Kru female dance, Vai dances, and the Kpelle and Bassa dances. Ms. Bobo has taught and performed at community events and in the Philadelphia Folklore Project's "Philly Dance Africa" and folk arts school residency programs. Gbahtuo Comgbaye was born and raised in Lower Nimba Conty, Liberia. His hometown, Nyor-didplay, was close to the border with the Ivory Coast, the homeland of an elder storyteller named Kergongor who periodically crossed into Liberia with his singers and traveled from village to village telling musical fables. Villagers from miles around gathered by the light of lanterns and bamboo torches to listen to Kergongor and his entourage spin their musical tales. Kergongor has been Comgbaye's artistic role model from the time he was a youngster until today. Comgbaye's extensive repertoire, by now gathered from careful attention to dozens of other storytellers, includes Kweze (Dan term for "legends"), spider stories, and "call and response stories, known as "Dangbei" among people of the Dan ethnic group. Comgbaye was forced to flee Liberia during the civil war, and lived as a refugee in the Ivory Coast before coming to the United States. He currently resides in Philadelphia, where he is nearing completion of training for a nursing degree. He continues to practice his storytelling in school programs and performances for adults and children. He also performs with his wife, traditional singer Zaye Tete, and Liberian dancer Kormassa Bobo. UPCOMING EVENTS Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 7:30 pm Taina Asili y La Banda Rebelde "Taina's voice speaks from a place of soul and struggle. Listen closely with your heart and hear with your spirit; it sounds like rebellion and feels like revolution." - Not4Prophet Monica McIntyre - Blues/soul cello and vocals "While Monica's sounds are truly and uniquely her own, one cant help but run into the ghosts of Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, and others on the way." - MagnaPhone Magazine Saturday, April 3, 2010 at 7:30 pm Chulrua - Irish traditional music "Adept at finding unusual tunes and variants, and in celebrating the individual voice in the flow of traditional practice: a reminder of the things that matter in Irish traditional music." - Irish Music Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 7:30 pm Archie Fisher - Scottish songs and ballads "One of Britain's finest song interpreters." - Sing Out. "Quietly poetic ballads haunt like a shadowy specter." - St. Paul Pioneer-Press Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 7:30 pm Michael Winograd Trio, with special guest Dan Blacksberg - New & traditional klezmer, Yiddish song & improv "The wedding band of choice for the hippest of shtetls." - City Paper "Formerly deceased, the music now enjoys rude good health. A perfect example of this sea change in musical fortunes." - The Forward Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm Jayateerth Mevundi - Indian classical vocalist of the Kirana gharana "Took [Kolkata's Nazrul Mancha] conference by storm. His presentation of Sudhkalyan followed by Pahari Thumri and Bhajan is still ringing in my ears. Jayatu Jayateerth! " Dhaka Daily Star Sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Center Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 7:30 pm Generations of Resistance, featuring: Anne Feeney - unionmaid, hell raiser, and labor singer "Congratulations on your fine songwriting!" - Pete Seeger "Anne Feeney is the best labor singer in North America." - Utah Phillips Evan Greer - Songs to inspire hope, build community and incite resistance "Songs [that] will be heard at the barricades for years to come." - Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine "An eloquent and energetic writer." - Howard Zinn Roy Zimmerman - Funny songs about ignorance, war, and greed "Lacerating wit & keen awareness of society's foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer." - Los Angeles Times "Reintroducing literacy to comedy songs." - Tom Lehrer Friday, May 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm Bruce Molsky & Ale Moller - Appalachian old time and Swedish traditional music "The Rembrandt of Appalachian fiddling." - Darrol Anger. "Among the most talented, active and prolific on the Swedish scene." - Dirty Linen Crossroads Music is in part supported by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the Samuel S. Fels Fund. This project is supported by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency, through the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts (PPA), its regional arts funding partnership. State government funding for the arts depends upon an annual appropriation by the Pennsylvania General Assembly and from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. PPA is administred in this region by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. -- Daniel Flaumenhaft Director, Crossroads Music Concert schedule and general information: http://www.crossroadsconcerts.org Recorded concert information: 215-729-1028 Cell: 215-285-2307 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crossroads-Music/52505738666 MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/crossroadsconcerts
