How a West African drum and dance group is mastering inclusivity at Anderson University

Olivia Stepp said she's been "bit" by the rippling drum rhythms and authentic dances from a rich Guinea culture built on generations of storytelling.

Stepp's classic ballet training did not prepare her for the loud, colorful new world at her first West African Ensemble rehearsal at Anderson University.

"You get to get comfortable with your body and connect with a culture, I would never have really heard of before." Stepp said. "I got bit and I just couldn't leave. So I've been here ever since."

Stepp is not the only student to get hooked since David Perry formed the group in 2007.

After a class on West African drumming pushed him to the engaging rhythm, Perry has been "getting bit" ever since directing countless performances and shows involving students from a variety of majors, he said.

"This type of music creates community."

Honoring ancestry: 'Community is what helps us to move forward'

Alisa Caldwell didn't pick West African dancing, it picked her.

"I believe that my ancestors passed this gift on to me, not to keep, but to teach," said Caldwell, a guest artist with the ensemble. "It is such a joy to be able to teach African dance, not just to students that look like me, but to all that are willing to embrace it."

Caldwell's career as a dancer kicked off after she performed in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Sharing a rich culture, the marriage of drum and dance, from her ancestors is a gift, she said.

"Most of my students don't look like me, but we're all hungry for our mind, body and spirit to be fed. That's what African dance and drum does."

Anderson is a predominately white school, 81% in the latest figures reported on the university's website.

Caldwell said she is thankful Anderson University has a group like this centered on inclusivity.

Having an ensemble saturated in the rich culture from Guinea in Anderson is "an anomaly" but that's the whole point, she said. It's a community where everyone is accepted.

"With that age group, it is so important to always remind them that community is what helps us to move forward," she said of the high schoolers and college students she teaches. "We're not in this thing alone."

Alongside Caldwell is guest artist Bolokoda Conde, a world renowned drummer known for his ability to exude joy through his instrument.

Conde often says the drum "makes people very, very happy," Caldwell said.

Across the multiple languages he speaks and the countless villages and countries he travels to, drumming is a universal language.

The group teaches young adults about unity

A chorus of drumsticks and hands summon deep hollow beats from tall drums. Those pulses billow to a ready sea of swinging hands and feet.

The conversation happening in Friday rehearsals is what separates this group from other forms of music. Each person is there to share a culture, a story, with someone else, sophomore Atyona Lambright said.

"The beauty of it, is everybody doesn't look the same and so we really get to represent that when we all dance just a little bit different than one another," Lambright said.

The group is looking at more places to perform whether that's at a basketball game or a middle school. They've brought their rhythms to all sorts of places from elementary schools to the mayor's annual MLK breakfast.

"I wish it was more common for groups like this to exist, especially on university campuses," Stepp said, now the group's dance captain.

Guinea's rich rhythms are just one cultural experience but there are countries all over the world that are unknown until someone takes the time to acknowledge they're there, she said.

Through the new community that came out of this group along with the performances and weekly rehearsals, Stepp has seen it making a difference.

"Now it's changed my life completely."

Twin sisters Mabry and Kenna Boyle are nearing the end of their junior year in music education. Mabry is a dancer while Kenna drums. The break from the rigid theory and classical classes is a welcome burst of fun, they said.

"It really opens your mind up to so many different things in the world and different forms of music and different ways to enjoy it," Kenna Boyle said. "It sparks so much hope in the people that are in the ensemble."

"Dr. Perry calls it being bit," Mabry Boyle said. "So yes, we've all been bit."

Sarah Sheridan is the community reporter in Anderson. She'd appreciate your help telling important stories; reach her at ssheridan@gannett.com or on twitter @saralinasher.

This article originally appeared on Anderson Independent Mail: West African drum, dance group teaching unity at Anderson University