On 22 May ILAM hosted Paul Chamberlain who provided a talk entitled, A report on the Dinaka dance of the Ba Pedi people in Polokwane. Paul Chamberlain conducted his research with the support of the Fulbright Programme. Paul Chambers is a musician and educator from Kingston, New York, who attended the State University of New York at Fredonia where he received a Master of Music degree in percussion performance in 2015 and a Bachelor of Music Education degree in 2013. At the University of New York at Fredonia he was also an adjunct faculty member of the percussion and music education departments from 2013 to 2016. He is an active performer of classical and contemporary Western music, but his interest in traditional African percussion music began while participating in West African drumming and xylophone ensembles at Fredonia while also traveling to study traditional music in Ghana three times between 2012 and 2016.
This research is the first ever conducted on this music and dance. Paul gave his immense collection of recordings undertaken in the field as well as a few transcriptions to ILAM. In his talk he discussed how he learnt the music and the dance from local practitioners and he provided a detailed account of the performance practices of this previously unexamined style through recordings and transcriptions. In addition, he reflected on the unique implications of being an "outsider" performing the music in their original contexts or settings.
To listen to the full presentation click here