"I want to give people an educational experience where we can appreciate our universality through music and dance.’ Cornell Coley
By Nell Escobar Coakley
MEDFORD TRANSCRIPT
email: ncoakley@cnc.com
The Medford Public Library is normally a place where residents can go to enjoy a little peace and quiet. But recently, patrons found themselves on their feet, shaking and dancing to an entirely new rhythm.
More than 30 people crowded into the Magoun Room Feb. 19 to listen to Mattapan resident Cornell Coley deliver a lecture about diverse African cultures. But what made this presentation different was the unique way in which information, music and dance were incorporated into the hour.
"You want to bridge the gap between audience and stage, but you don’t want to lecture," Coley said of the integration. "I try to give information in a way that’s interactive."
Coley said he’s experimented with the best way to garner audience participation over the past 10 to 15 years he’s been performing. He said his mentor Bamidele Osumarea had a very tight program which integrated many of the same principals of trying to get the audience to connect with a performer.
Coley said he’ll tailor a performance based on the audience makeup he finds when he arrives at a site - that way, not only can he present his information, but also ensures his audience will want to participate.
"I try to present different opportunities for people to get involved," he said. "That’s why I bring out the shekere (an African gourd-type shaker with beads). Once people connect with the shakeres and get going, then it’s easy to get people to join you. I then try to think of questions that are in their heads and try to answer [before they can voice them] ."
Coley added he’s never surprised that young children want to join in the fun, but adults and teenagers can often be reluctant.
"I think they feel self-conscious," he said. "But some adults you can’t tell by their appearance by what they’re going to do. They always remind you that you can’t judge a book by its cover."
Coley said he was surprised that the audience in the Magoun Room last week was definitely ready to shake, rattle and roll.
"That was above-average participation," he said. "I recently did a performance at the Worcester library with a different slant because it combined music and doing a few dance steps from Ghana. I had to leave early [last week] , but people were definitely ready. I wish I could have stayed longer."
Residents at Coley’s performance also wished he could have stayed longer. Some said they really enjoyed the performance.
"I came for the multicultural aspect," said Nina Melo, a Medford resident who attended with son Andre, 4. "He really enjoys the African drums. We really enjoyed it. I was sorry I was late." Larry Horlick, a Brookline resident, also enjoyed the performance. Although his son Jack, 1, was the youngest attendee last Thursday, it didn’t stop the tot from bopping along to the different drum beats.
"I took him to a performance in Framingham earlier and he really seems to be into music," Horlick said. "I thought this was great and that [Coley] connected well with the kids."
For Medford resident Anna Ekpenyong, Coley’s performance was not only educational, but an opportunity for her to jump in and volunteer to play the shakere.
"I guess you could say I’m a swinging, jazzy old lady," she said of the experience. "Actually, I found this quite interesting. I learned a lot and it refreshed a lot of what I knew. He was a one-man show, but he really pulled in the audience with his music and drums."
Although a Mattapan resident, Medford is familiar territory to Coley, who attended Tufts University as an English and creative writing major in the early 1970s. Born in Jamaica and moving to Boston at age 4, Coley said he’d never really traveled, except for the long commute from Boston to Medford.
But in 1972, everything changed.
Coley, a junior at the time, had the opportunity to travel to Africa for a year. And while he had the chance to choose between Nigeria or Ghana, he chose the latter because the other student traveling to Africa was going to Nigeria.
"Actually my parents had to be talked into [letting me go] by the guidance counselor because they thought Africa wasn’t really a progressive move," Coley said. "But that was a time when black people were exploring their roots and it was timely. It turned out to be a great move because Ghana had just received their independence following a revolution over that past summer. In fact, there were bullet holes in the dorm walls."
After graduating in 1974, Coley moved to Northern California, not to pursue a career in writing or English, but in the arts. He got a job in a neighborhood arts program as a dancer.
From there, Coley turned an interest in the drums and dance into more. He took different cultural aspects from Brazil, Ghana and Cuba and used them in his dance career.
But after four years, Coley decided he wanted more and moved to Los Angeles to study dance ethnology at UCLA. He also studied arts administration and teaching.
By 1986, Coley was back in Boston. After a brief time spent working at the Department of Education, he enrolled in graduate school to obtain his masters in education and started performing around the state.
The rest, he said, is history.
"I guess what I really want to get across to people is that music goes deep into our psyche," Coley said. "People of different cultures started out playing music as religious expressions in order to connect with the land and their spiritual beings. I want to give people an educational experience where we can appreciate our universality through music and dance."
@2004 by CNC; reprinted by permission of the author.