WORKSHOPS, CLASSES & COURSES Kunda offers a wide variety of fun and educational workshops for both adults & children. This includes one-time and multi-day workshops in communities & schools throughout B.C. and North America, progressive ongoing classes and weekend camps at home on the Sunshine Coast & in Vancouver, as well as intensive courses of several weeks in Koca’s homeland of Guinea, West Africa.
WEST AFRICAN DRUMMING (DJEMBE & DOUNDOUN) Learn and explore traditional West African rhythms with djembefola (master drummer) Kocassale Dioubate, born and raised in Guinea - also the birthplace of the djembe drum. Discover the rich traditional and historical cultural use of each rhythm. Learn different polyrhythms and the different overlaying parts of which they consist, including accompaniments, lead, plus doundouns, as well as work on your basic and soloing techniques. Accommodated to all different skill levels.
WEST AFRICAN DANCE Want to feel good, have fun, and get fit? Let loose with Kunda’s fun & energetic African dance workshops! These high-energy dances & movements are guaranteed to get you sweating and to lift your spirits. African dance is a joyful, free, corporal expression – it is a fabulous and beautiful art, as well as a great stress-release and awesome intensive all-over toner & cardio exercise! Learn basic movements and postures of West African dance, as well as the traditional uses and meanings behind certain dances & movements, learn different choreographs to accompany specific traditional rhythms, as well as walk through thorough warm-ups and cool-downs with stretches and exercises which serve to keep you flexible, nimble, and agile, while washing wash away your aches and pains…
PERCUSSION JAM & DRUM CIRCLE Let your inner rhythm out through an experimental and playful percussion jam led by Kunda, with a variety of different traditional West African percussion instruments, including the djembe (hand drum), balafon (xylophone), kiri (log drum), sasa (gourd shakers) and more. Learn several basic rhythms to play as a group in an informal & playful setting. Instruments provided.
AFRICAN SONG & LANGUAGE Learn to sing fun and soothing African songs & harmonies in Koca’s native African tongue(s) of Mandingo & Sousou, to accompany different rhythms & dances, and their meanings. Explore new sounds, and broaden your linguistic palette!
INSTRUMENT BUILDING / DRUM SKINNING Sasa Creation: Create your own original beaded gourd shaker with your personal touch, and learn how to play it! Materials provided. Djembe Skinning: Create your own instrumental masterpiece, learning to skin and tune your own drum in the traditional way, alongside djembefola (master drummer) Kocassale Dioubate. Materials provided.
PRIVATE LESSONS Private lessons are available to all ages, and can be arranged by appointment. Please contact us by e-mail [email protected] or Phone # 604 366 7744
INTENSIVE COURSE IN GUINEA, WEST AFRICA Interested in something even wilder? Want to learn African music and dance through cultural immersion and hands-on experience? Travel with Kunda to Guinea, West Africa, where we also coordinate intensive drum, dance, & other instrumental courses! Guinea is in the heart of the motherland of Western African percussion & dance - a country renown worldwide for its’ rich & colorful artistically achieved music & dance culture. Not to mention that it is a gorgeous tropical country blessed with amazing landscapes, lush rainforests, an abundance of rivers and waterfalls, islands with sandy palm fringed beaches….. As well as colorful villages, bustling markets, an incomparable nightlife scene…. Need we go on??