The drumming techniques learnt by participants of the Signal to Noise Communications Camp took centre stage on Wednesday during campers’ closing performance at the Old Spirit Bond building in The City.
This performance was viewed online by scores of persons from Barbados and individuals further afield.
The camp’s participants were involved in a five-week drumming course which was a joint venture between the Centre for Hybrid Studies and the Venezuelan drumming group, ‘Herencia Patarrumba’.
The Camp was staged by the Centre. Meanwhile the course was taught virtually by Venezuelan master, Manuel Moreno who is from the “Herencia Patarrumba drumming group. Through it, the young participants were exposed to the Venezuelan drumming musical culture.
Addressing Wednesday’s proceedings, Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to Barbados, Alvaro Sanchez specially recognised the youngsters involved in the Camp. He told the virtual and face to face audience that, “These past five weeks have represented a lot of work but it has been a very, very beautiful cultural endeavour that you will see where Barbadian, Venezuelan and African culture have come together in one place.”
He also said the venture came at a time when Barbados and Venezuela are about to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations.
Wednesday’s event was also addressed by Director of the Centre for Hybrid Studies, Dr. Deryck Murray. He described the joint programme as “historic and extremely important.”
“Both the Herencia and the Centre for Hybrid Studies are seeking to rediscover and share the common African ancestry and heritage that link African descent ....to Venezuela with Barbados’ 95 percent African descended population. This shared knowledge is to serve as the rich and fertile soil for future cultural innovation and spiritual development that our respective communities will certainly need to survive and thrive in these increasingly troubled times.
Dr. Murray said going forward the Centre will “continue to deepen and strengthen our already strong Barbadian-Venezuelan ties by delving into everything that goes into playing of the drums. With Herencia, we will continue to recruit and teach children and adults to drum, sing and dance to Venezuelan and Barbadian African rhythms while at the same time researching and documenting the cosmological, spiritual, scientific and material underpinnings of diasporic African drum music and drum making.”
He also said in future there will be a course where a Barbadian master drummer will share their skills and this course is to be named after a local master drummer.(MG)