SOAR Regional Arts
(612) 568-7627
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 6TH, 2017
Saint Michael City Center, Saint Michael MN
4:30PM-5:30PM
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 16TH, 2017
Saint Michael City Center, Saint Michael MN
6:30PM-8:00PM
Sowah Mensah is an ethnomusicologist, composer and a “Master Drummer” from Ghana, West Africa. Sowah has taught music in both Ghana and Nigeria and is currently a music professor at both Macalester College, and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN where he also directs each school’s African Music Ensemble. In addtion, he is currently a James Marsh Professor-at-Large at the University of Vermont in Burlington, VT and directs the African Music Ensemble at the University of Minnesota. Sowah is the director of Sankofa, a Ghanaian Folklore and Dance Ensemble in the Twin Cities and a member of Speaking in Tongues, a four-piece group based out of the Twin Cities that uses two percussionists, a bassist and a Chinese pipa player.
Sowah enjoys an active performance career. In August 2003 Sowah toured Beijing, China with the Kenmore Wind Ensemble from Kenmore, WA to perform his composition “Nyamo” for Band and African Ensemble where they performed at the prestigious Tsinghua University. Sowah was then invited back in June 2004 to conduct a series of workshops for high school music teachers and students. In May 2000 he made his Carnegie Hall, New York debut as a soloist in David Fanshaw’s African Sanctus.
He has performed extensively in the United States, the Latin Americas, and in Africa, where he performed with the Ghana National Symphony Orchestra. In the United States, he has performed with notables such as Max Roach, Don Chery, Roscoe Mitchel, and Julius Hemphil. He has also performed with the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Chanticleer, Minnesota Center Chorale, St. Paul Civic Symphony, Minnesota Sinfonia, Duluth Superior Symphony, Minnetonka Symphony Orchestra, Abendmusik: the Lincoln Chorus of Nebraska, and the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, Florida, as well as many folk festivals in the US. In addition, Sowah presents clinics, lectures, workshops, and residencies at many colleges, elementary and secondary schools, churches, and music organizations all over the United States.
Sowah Mensah, African "Master Drummer"
Open to All Ages (5th grade and under should be accompanied by adult)
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre
Open to All Ages (5th grade and under should be accompanied by adult)
Space is Limited (40ppl)
Our original name was Powderhorn Puppet Theatre in honor of the neighborhood in which our theatre is located, Powderhorn Park in South Minneapolis. In 1979, company member and poet Steven Linsner suggested the name “In the Heart of the Beast” as a metaphor for our theater. He wrote,
To be puppeteers in the Heart of the Beast is to find ourselves in the great world Beast made of families, races, ages, sexes, classes, corporations and nations, people, (and creatures!) all different, working out a way to live together. Is to work puppets. To hold life in our hands, to sense how we are all like puppets—worked by instincts, voices, and forces above us and below us. Is to carry and protect something very old like a heart within us, a secret, a promise. Like carrying a flickering candle through a dark place. Like carrying a family in a horse-drawn wagon. Is to travel the roads of history and loss, in search of something like a new heart: new communities, new families, new work, new holidays. Is to tell the story of people who live in the heart of the beast—as courageous and resourceful as they really are.
This workshop will consist of a puppet construction demonstration and exposure to creating one of your own while under the direction of the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre staff.
Register now and space is limited to 40 people. We will confirm your spot as we near the workshop.
Participants will receive a demonstration and discussion with Sowah Mensah about African drumming and dance. You will then be brought through a workshop where participants can try the drumming techniques on real African Djembes.
QUESTIONS?
Contact
SOAR REGIONAL ARTS
612.568.7627
soar@soararts.com
