Henri Gaobi
is a Master Drummer from West Africa where for many years he performed with the Ivory Coast National Ballet. He teaches, performs and records, and plays a wide range of instruments including djembe, doundouba, balafon, and talking drum. He has dedicated himself since childhood to the traditional drumming patterns of his country, and is one of the finest djembe players in Britain. He sustains a rhythmic pulse alongside the most complex solo patterns, ensuring the result is a dynamic musical whole.
Henri Gaobi is the musical director of KAAGO, and he and Rose Zan Lou, dancer and artistic director, form the core of KAAGO. They are both from the Guro community of West Central Ivory Coast, and performed together for many years in the National Ballet. They, and the other experienced artists in KAAGO, specialise in rich and varied performances, incorporating singing, percussion, mime theatre, stilt-walking, acrobatics, and authentic village mask dances.
Drummer and dancers require total concentration and split second timing in these high octane dances, and yet they flow and weave in harmony as though it were simplicity itself.
Examples of Henri’s range of musical work in 2004/5:
* drumming workshops for adults and children together at several community festivals, including Westminster City Council’s Play Days in Paddington Recreation Ground, and Hastings Green Fair. Teaches African drumming at Westminster Adult Education Service
* directed and performed in KAAGO on the famous African Village Stage at the Burgess Park RISE Festival, the Hastings Sankofa Festival on Hastings Pier, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, and Royal Festival Hall Africa Days in London.
*played with the Master Drummers of Africa to packed audiences in the UK and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall London.
* played with Turin Brakes at the London Eye Make Poverty History event
*toured with bands such as Batanai Marimba, Zuria, and Macharangwanda all over the UK, and other parts of Europe.
*supported with music and dance, dozens of events in Black History Month in schools, colleges, community venues, universities, and other public places
*created a welcoming and open environment at events such as conferences, weddings, baptisms, and birthday parties.
African National Ballet companies have a history of bringing artists together who teach each other the regional variations and legacies of their particular part of the country and community. Henri and KAAGO artists bring a heritage largely unknown to European cultural traditions and audiences in the form of many different traditional dances from their villages in West Africa, with an exciting range of masks and costumes. The physical strength needed to perform these dances is matched by the skill and grace and interaction between musicians, dancers and acrobats. The masks tantalize the imagination as they evoke the animal and natural world from which they come.
Drumming Workshops:
Some people attribute the rise of popularity of the djembe in Britain to Henri’s teaching skills, and delight in sharing the music of West Africa. Many European teachers and players of the djembe today will have studied at some point with him.
Henri has the skill to work with complete beginners of all ages and ability, enabling them to create beautiful rhythms in a short space of time. He runs workshops several times a week in London and around Britain and has been doing so consistently since 1992, so has a vast wealth of experience in working both
with children and adults, sensitively adapting sessions to suit those with a range of abilities and disabilities.
African percussion swiftly unites a group precisely because village life has this thousand year old history of uniting people through music, rhythms and dance.
KAAGO can provide drumming and percussion and/or dance workshops to suit groups of all ages, and can adapt to the needs of the group in terms of size, length of session, and venue.
The aim of all workshops is to enable self expression in a united, supportive and enjoyable environment.
KAAGO – a Guro word meaning “Let’s Go”!
Contact Henri Goabi
On 020 8 674 8950 / 07762 234 553 / 07720 548 104
EMAIL: gaobi1@hotmail.co.uk
Fees are linked to the Incorporated Society of Musicians recommendations, and will be agreed according to requirements.
Workshops aim to:
- Increase hand-eye co-ordination
- Develop drumming techniques, learn the tonal range, and keep tempo
- Teach a range of rhythms, solo and support
- Increase physical stamina and control
- Encourage team-work skills (sensitivity to others, staying in relationship with others)
- Create opportunities for performance, and support dance classes
- Introduce complex African rhythms, which have a mathematical basis acquired through the body as well as the intellect
- Increase awareness of cultural diversity and commonality
- Enable access to sophisticated musical skills regardless of literacy and numeracy levels
- Introduce care and maintenance of drums
- Create music in a group even where physical or mental ability may be impaired (for example, some physical disability, autism, sight or hearing impaired).
- Encourage self-expression