Department of Music

• Sunday, April 26th, 2009
• Old Cabell Hall
• 3:30pm
• Free

The African Music and Dance Ensemble directed by Michelle Kisliuk will celebrate spring with a free concert featuring special guest Nani Kwashi Agbeli.

Nani Kwashi Agbeli is a native of the Ewe's in the Volta Region of Ghana. He received his dance and drum training from his father, Godwin K. Agbeli. Godwin was appointed by the goverment of Ghana as the leader of a nationally sponsored professional performing group, the Arts Council of Ghana National Folkloric Company. Nani also took lessons from artists at the National Arts Center in Accra. Nani has performed with and led the cultural group Sankofa Root II in Ghana where they have received many awards. He has been the co- drum and the lead dance instructor at the Dagbe Cultural Center in Kopeyia, Ghana for 9 years. Schools such as Berklee College of Music, Tufts University, Bowling Green University attend the Dagbe Cultural Center to study. Nani has also been a guest artist at the University of Legon in Ghana, Edna Manley School of Dance, Music, Textile and Performing in Jamaica, and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachussettes.

The U.Va. African Music and Dance Ensemble, directed by associate professor Michelle Kisliuk, focuses on traditional music and dance forms from West Africa (Ghana, Togo) and also from Central Africa (BaAka pygmies, U.Va. being the only place outside of Africa where this music is studied and performed).

The group develops tight ensemble dynamics, aural musicianship and a polymetric sensibility, performing several times each year. The theme of this year's concert was "playing with perception," which resonated with the material on several levels: multiple rhythms and interactive vocal lines, dance movements and drum calls; also multiple perceptions of Africa in America, at this concert moment, with this combination of performers and audience.

For more information, please call the Music Department at 434.924.3052.