LikeWaterDrumWorks.com
Title
Like Water Drumworks
Description
About Like Water Drumworks
Like Water Drumworks started in 1997 as a one-man operation based in a studio apartment in Boston, Massachusetts, founded by Ryan Edwards. Skinning djembes, taking classes at Berklee College of Music, and playing for local African dance classes was the beginning.
Ryan's 1999 trip to Guinea (with Abou Sylla of Les Ballets Africains) marked the beginning of a new focus, and clear direction to study West African arts, as they had been presented to him in Guinea. Also influential was DeAma Battle, of the Art of Black Dance and Music, who took Ryan under her wing, hiring him as a drummer and later as a teacher in New England performances and school programs. These, combined with the positive role modelling provide by Joe Galeota (a drum professor from Berklee), ignited the fires in Ryan to teach, learn, and play drums for dancers.
Ryan and Like Water moved back to Michigan (place of his birth) in 2000 to start a family and to pioneer the African arts in midwest America. Based first in Ann Arbor, and now in Chelsea, MI, the organization grew to offer weekly djembe and dunun classes, organize performances for local and touring African artists, build, repair, and design drums and percussion instruments, create the performance ensemble Like Water Drum & Dance, as well as catalyze the local Rhythmaculture.
Languages
English
