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By Jasmina Shreck
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Wednesday, 10 June 2009 |
 Pape Cisse started teaching in 2004
I’m at an Oulu weekend workshop in djembe drums and Afro dance. The teachers are from the West African Mama Africa group, a ‘colourful and lively group passing on the West African dance and music tradition.’ Founded in Senegal in 1989 and in Finland in 1997, Mama Africa have won music competitions and performed all over the world.
Pape Cisse, today’s djembe instructor, has even played for Martti Ahtisaari and for Tarja Halonen. And today he’s teaching me.
I’m one of fifteen students today sitting behind their djembes, a skin-covered drum shaped like a tall goblet. We’ve formed a circle around Pape, who’s wearing a green and yellow hat, and is using a stick–a plain stick, nothing special–and sometimes his hands, to drum a simple pattern.
In a mix of Finnish and English he explains this first step, a pattern alternating between beating the drum with the stick and the palm of your hand.
“Aklingo aktuti njeh,” he sings now and then, or something similar –I’m not great on my African dialects, and noone in the quietly concentrating group of enthusiasts interrupts to ask.
Though this first step feels straightforward, and we all keep up, things get complex quickly. The drum patterns become longer and the playing hugely diverse–one or both hands in a flush of different places and tones.
Suddenly the singing parts are upon us. They sound nice, but I have trouble remembering even short phrases and mumble something. To loosen us up, Pape reverts to basic drum patterns now and then. The workshop group instantly join in, then after a few minutes of comfort he returns to the exercises. ‘It’s coming,’ he says every few minutes, smiling.
His enthusiasm is infectious, and by the time each is supposed to present the pattern alone in front of everyone else, I go all out trying to get it right.
After the lesson ends, I ask Pape questions. He was born in Senegal’s capital Dakar, he tells me. He’s been teaching different African percussion instruments–the djembe, sabar, tama and doundoun–since 2004, and recently took over the djembe drum part in the Oulu workshop.
In a matter of minutes, the dancing, the second part of the workshop, starts, and I have no more time to continue the interview.
A new teacher, Sofi-Marianne Leppä, teaches us the choreography piece by piece. Pape plays an accompaniment, and we dance a quite demanding piece that is used to celebrate the return of Senegal fishermen with their daily catch.
‘Dancing makes me free,’ Sofi-Marianne exclaims. ‘It’s a way to express myself. Sets free a lot of energy and I feel much better afterwards.”
It’s remarkable how she manages to keep smiling, I think, after such strenuous moves. I’ve obviously become stiff, I think. I need to do something sporty. And buy a drum.
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