September 2011 Update

Jil Bawr (Dagara Balafon Festival Festival) will be held again in Dano for the 7th consecutive year. All are invited the festival which begins Wednesday February 1st and runs through Sunday, February 5th 2012. As the popularity of this event has grown it is bringing in more and more talented musicians. There will be several rounds of competition prior to the final round. The music, again, will be fantastic and go till late in the night.

2009 Update

The 2009 festival was  a huge success. This year we had so many participants that we had to invite them all to compete in one of 8 different local regions to select the top finalists to go to Dano for the final round of competition!  In some areas there were more than 200 contestants vying for a spot in the finals.  Obviously word has gotten out and the response is very exciting.

The finals were fantastic.  Four days and night of furious and fantastic music.  We now have a Dagara committee; comprised of men and women, form various parts of Dagaraland - some who are musicians and some who are not - who oversee the entire event and make decisions about how it should happen.  One of the interesting issues they are balancing and working through is the degree of purity or improvisation they are willing to accept for this competition.  There are numerous issues that come up - but the interesting thing is to witness the way the Dagara themselves are engaging with these issues.

The other highlight of this year's festival was the two day students edition of the competition.  Here we got to see the amazing payoff of our 'Balafons in the Schools' initiative.  Two years before we were given funds to purchase 30 sets of balafons to place in 30 different schools around Dano.  After months of inspiration, practice and more the schools came forward to compete, share and check-out each-other's progress.  It was amazing! The highlight was seeing a 9 year old girl take second place in the balafon competition!  People went crazy with her playing.  Women rarely are encouraged to play balafon - so this was a real treat.  We hope to see more in the future.  We are really needing and wanting more support for the Festival and the initiative to see that each of the 150 Dagara schools has their own set of balafons.  It only costs $100 to do this and the whole village community is hugely impacted by this!

This year we are also happy to announce the support of the German based Dreyer foundation who is joining us to help co-sponsor the 2010 edition of our festival.

Dates for the 2010 edition of Djil Baor are February 4-7th.  The children's festival will take place during the day, and the adults will play by night.  All are welcome.

Dagara Teo, the Dagara Village project is coming along beautifully with 7 Zangala compounds completed. Rains this year were a real problem, as they are for all mud structures, and set us back substantially, but our forward progress now is significant and work is already underway to make repairs and continue building the remaining Zangalas.

Above all, we need your support with all of this work.  This vibrant culture is under significant pressure from the inside and the outside to let go of its oddly beautiful and singular treasures.  Please help find a way to keep these treasures alive for the coming times.  On behalf of David Poda, my intrepid Dagara visionary and co-worker, Barka!
Fondly,
Mark Bockley

Fesmuda  (Festival de la Musique Dagara) will be held in March this year, dates still being determined. It was our hope to continue to run these events concurrent to one another, but it takes too much of the students time and consequently will happen over vacation periods. This event too is growing by leaps and bounds. The quality of musicianship is also growing tremendously. This whole initiative is the result of having people donate pairs of balafons to schools in Dagaraland. To date 49 pairs of balafons have been placed in schools and the remaining 130 schools are begging for their's as well. If you are able to help out we would love it. Just $50 will put a pair in a school, and re-ignite the critical connection between youth and their traditional music. You can donate right on this site!

Our 2008 edition of the Balafon Festival was a huge success with over 80 groups performing. Thousands of people attended over the four day festival. The music was spectacular.

We also were able to purchase over 30 balafon sets and place them in schools, hopefully ensuring that Dagara music will be more actively woven into the scholastic programs and lives of Dagara students.This year's festival promises to be even richer.  The festival is now being overseen by an all Dagara committee which will help to steer its progress and evolution.  The whole idea continues to grow and deepen.  Most importantly, the Dagara community is very excited by and engaged with all of it!  We hope it continues to inspire and deepen this potent musical and cultural tradition.

In the future we plan to begin to use the Dagara language for this festival - which is - Djil Baor, or the meeting of the Balafons!

This year's festival will be held beginning on Friday March 13th through Monday March 16th.  It will be proceeded by a three day Dagara youth music festival which Zangala also is sponsoring. All of this is open to the public free of charge. It is also our plan to hold this year's event at the newly developed Dagarateo site! We hope to see you there!  And we welcome your help in keeping this dream alive and moving forward.

Please help contribute to this unique experiment in honoring this vibrant culture.

This initiative began as the Ballafon project, and has blossomed into a full blown regional music festival held early in February every year in Dano.  It is a showcase for traditional Dagara music including various styles of Ballafon, women’s singing groups, griots (Cantateurs) and other instruments.

In our 2008 edition of this festival, our third – scheduled for February 4th through February 9th, we plan to open the competition up to younger players – focusing on school age children.   This addition is also beautifully highlighted by a generous donation to Zangala which will allow us to put a pair of Ballafons in each of the 30+ schools in the Department of Dano!  (We hope to continue to work in the schools which are working hard to develop a bi-lingual education at the primary level.)  This gift of Ballafons – the soul and voice of the people, promises to be a great way to help keep Dagara culture, language, and cultural vibrancy present in the formative educational sphere.

The festival has started to draw accomplished musicians from other countries to come and compete.  The ambience is incredibly lively with spontaneous dancing and singing erupting throughout the day and night as the musicians perform.  Please join us!  There is great lodging at the Auberge and plenty to see and do.  Dates this year are February 7th – 10th, 2008.