How To (Arc)Map News
…check out their non-profit organisations’ scheme, which allows registered charities access to software for free. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FIRST POST…
Day 4: Discovery of the Young Stars… Story
…great dancers who also introduced us to our first Africa venture with the Vuvuzelas. They also had a wonderful Teng’ (the horn): Here’s the full band. The leader is second from right. The two lead dancers are third from the right and far right sitting. https://youtu.be/YT7fEQn7u5o https://youtu.be/F_iuv9uwlRo https://youtu.be/ZLRh1szBXoI https://youtu.be/NLstJmXsKTU https://youtu.be/-fgeskbFbow Jose Kokeyo Jose is a fantastic benga player. Intere…
Day 3: Homa Bay and the Kochia Dancers Story
…to the studio we recording the visually spectacular Kochia Dancers. We drove from Kisumu to Homa Bay; we’re on Lake Victoria now at Homa Bay (still 1PM on your Lake Victoria dial) but a little more south and a little more west, on the south shore of the Winam Gulf. After a long drive, we set up at the hotel in a beautiful field against the lake – we’re surrounded by camels and pelicans, which is frankly a bit off putting. The pelicans are big eno…
Day 2: Focus on the Nyatiti, Orutu and DRUMS! Story
…rumming. Woke up at the Nyanza Club, outside Kisumu, on the shores of Lake Victoria. This is the view of Lake Victoria we face in the morning before we set out to the next village, Saiya: As we will do six times on this trip, we pass the equator. We can’t help ourselves: Left to Right: Steve, Winyo (with Bone Guitar), Andy and Tabu. After this shameless tourist stop we head out towards Siaya. We’re still roughly 1 PM on the Lake Victoria clock, 90…
Where the hell is Matt? 2012 News
…Matt Harding’s new video is an inspiration – he’s done something very special to bring people together through music and dance and show that, despite our many differences, dancing is something that brings happiness to everyone. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the wonderful new video….. Where the Hell is Matt? 2012…
Day 1: The music of the Luo – starting at Rang’ala Village Story
…n to Osumba Rateng and Ogoya Nengo… If you look at a map and think of Lake Victoria as a clock face, the village for today’s recording is at 1PM – it is the Rang’ala Village, home of the legendary Luo singer Ogoya Nengo. We’re about 90 minutes northeast of Kisumu, our ‘base’ for two days. We are here to record the Sega Sega Band (Benga Style) and the Do Do Band (Do Do), both Luo musical styles; the Luo are Kenya’s third largest tribe, making up ab…
The Batwa Trail News
…ntegrate with the surrounding communities. The income provides an alternative to illegal poaching in the park’. Click here for the Batwa Trail website The Batwa Trail video by Ivy Beccu Ivy’s email to Singing Wells Hello Victoria, I thank you for writing to me! I was in Uganda on an organized tour and visited Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, Murchison Falls, Kibale Forest National Park, Queen Elisabeth National Park, Lake Bunyonyi, Kisoro (Nshongi Gori…
From Kisoro to Nairobi to Lake Victoria Story
…rs, a room of blood stained clothes, a room of video of testimonials of survivors… but the rooms that effect you the most are the children’s rooms. There is a maze of inter-connected cubicles. Each is for one child. One wall is a photograph – floor to ceiling of the child. Another wall has a set of ‘facts.’ Name: Michele’. Age: 26 months. Favourite food: chips (they all loved chips the best). Favourite game: Chasing her brother down the hill. Last…
Day 6: The Studio @ Traveller’s Rest Hotel, Kisoro Story
…s Brown style’ falls to the floor from the principal dancers, only to be revived again by the drummers. Simply amazing. Their drums were the key to their style – reviving them each time they fell from ‘James Brown’ exhaustion: https://youtu.be/1et4E7lKojA https://youtu.be/1BvCwhX2ctM The Kabahena Group had arrived with the Gatera Group and due to the former’s extended performance, they had to wait quite a time to get ‘on stage’. This did not app…
Samba Mapangala & Orchestra Virunga News
…ject. He sang as part of a ‘Welcome’ concert put together by our friends at Ketebul, along with Winyo and Ayub Ogada. We’ll bring more news on his new album as we have it, but until then you can view his tour dates on the Abubilla Music events calendar – just click here For a profile on Samba Mapangala click here …
Day 5 (PM): The ‘Togetherness Group’ from Kanyabukunga Story
…os which include a Batwa song called ‘Abagyeni Beza’ which is in praise of visitors to the community, telling them that they are beautiful. A lovely song for us to hear! https://youtu.be/MIxv2AOZ7XU https://youtu.be/iYuE_b8lzF8 https://youtu.be/bApTXsrdZ3A https://youtu.be/nh9LxM8OrfE https://youtu.be/CPJ5H7XvdT0 https://youtu.be/qQK5NiF7aSk ‘Abagyeni Beza’ https://youtu.be/7i3F5hPSPg8 The afternoon session wraps up at about 5pm. We say our fa…
Day 5: Recording the Mperwa Dancers Story
…ance… Here are the videos: https://youtu.be/zFjbdw9j1io https://youtu.be/W_VV8xEYziM https://youtu.be/t8Ui32w_NbI https://youtu.be/QHo5Eb2Az20 https://youtu.be/wxzzC5qcweU https://youtu.be/mhzNpJLsZFA https://youtu.be/h_mVjup7_6s https://youtu.be/1zjh68iNClw Jessie leads the first Influences session and Winyo accompanies the lead singer and drummer on another…… …and then serenades one of the women outside her hut! The children like to get involved…
Day 4 (later): Recording for ‘Influences’ with the Birara Dancers Story
…ant to these communities. It is no exaggeration to say that most of them live to dance, live to sing. When we come to record them, we come to honour them, to listen to them as they tell their stories. But that is not enough. We said when we started this project that we weren’t fossil collectors. Our goal wasn’t to shove the music on to hard drives and store them in some museum. Our goal was to also bring that music to the next generation of artist…
Day 4: UOBDU and the Birara Dancers Story
DAY 4: After 3 days of travel (at least for those of us leaving from London), we were ready to record. And we rewarded with a great day of recording, starting in the morning with the Birara Dancers, led by the legendary Batwa artist, Francis Sembagare. We woke up early and were greeted with this wonderful view from the garden of the Traveller’s Rest Guesthouse: After breakfast our first stop was the office of the United Organisation for Batwa Dev…
Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…mountain gorillas. It is a completely land locked country. It shares Lake Victoria with Kenya and Tanzania. Crossing the Border: Rwanda was colinised by the Germans and Belgians, Uganda by the British. The result? As you cross the border between the two countries you switch sides of the road. Our drivers had left hand side drive, which was fine in Uganda, but meant that those in the passager side were left in the ‘middle of the road’ driving arou…
Day 1 & 2: Preparing to leave for Kisoro, Uganda Story
…5D, 7D and 60D camera/lenses and 12 32GB flash cards, plus multiple lenses to video the tribal dances. A major lesson from the March Pilot and Lake Turkana Cultural Festival was that we had under-estimated the video requirements for a shoot. In this round of fund raising, we purchased additional video recording equipment for the Singing Wells Project (SW3) and also brought Abubilla Music’s own video kit (AM2. For the record, AM1, is a similar remo…