Resurrection Dance Theater

Resurrection Dance Theater, named for the troupe’s mission: to “lift up the St. Joseph Family from the rubble,” performed in Talley Student Center’s Stewart Theater Friday night to a packed auditorium.

The troupe is comprised of 10 former children of the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, taken in by the St. Joseph Family, a school for orphaned and disenfranchised Haitian youth. Their Friday night program consisted of eight performances which included drama, dance and rollicking, traditional Haitian drumming.

Most of the numbers had powerful and serious themes, including those of triumphing over adversity and of reclaiming freedom — slavery is a problem in Haiti to this day — and of finding self-worth.

Serena Murison, a freshman in Spanish, said she enjoyed the performance.

“I thought it was good and I think they portrayed life in Haiti excellently,” Murison said.

Julia Belcher, a freshman in nutrition science, was also a fan of the group and of one performer in particular.

“I love Didi!” Belcher said. Didi is the group’s youngest performer, at the age of 10. However, he had a definitive presence in the show overall, performing in all of the group numbers and in a solo dance, to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

Cheryl Proctor, a board member of Hearts with Haiti, the Cincinnati-based nonprofit with a Raleigh-based planning and development office, spoke during the show, and became so admittedly emotional that she choked up.

After the show in the lobby of Stewart Theater, Proctor commented on the dancers’ level of communion and connection with the audience.

“It was so engaging. These guys have such a way of drawing you in. I’ve known them for 12 years and watched them grow up, and I’ve seen their wonderful hopes and dreams for the future,” Proctor said. “I love them and I have seen them so many times, and every time it evolves, it changes. It’s great.”

Though the St. Joseph Family school started 25 years ago, they suffered huge setbacks after the January earthquake in Haiti, and were for several nerve-wracking days unsure of the whereabouts of or the well-being of certain members of the dance troupe. Fortunately, none of the children or staff of the school were killed or seriously injured.

Walnes, one of the dancers, spoke after the show of the restorative and life-changing powers of his craft.

“We all come from rough backgrounds, from the streets. We have been neglected. Art is something very meaningful to us. It plays such a huge part in our lives. It is a way for us to live,” Walnes said.

Haitian Drum Making

Also part of the Haitian Celebration was a Craft Center class that taught students how to make their own drum.

Tony Allen, a senior in physics and the drum-making instructor, said people at the Craft Center knew him as the guy who made drums before George Thomas, the director of the Craft Center, approached him about teaching a class as part of the Haitian Celebration activities.

“I play drums so I just looked online and saw how they were made. There’s a Haitian drum called the petwo drum and they use it in some ceremonies,” Allen said. “Originally, they made it by hollowing out a log from a tree; they drill a hole, set it over a fire and hollow the wood out. We built drums similar to that except we used modern tools.”

The workshop began Friday and students took their completed drums home Sunday afternoon.

“Friday we cut staves. It’s like assembling a barrel — so you take planks of wood, you cut them at an angle so they fit together and depending on how many staves you have you cut them circularly. I taught them how to stabilize them and how to cut them,” Allen said. “We put the drums together and had a little bit of time left over so I taught them how to taper the drums.”

Saturday, Allen said the group shaved the edges off the wood to make the drum round.

“It was a really long process, so every 45 minutes we would take a break and I told them how to make a snare drum, how to make the rope stuff. It took [Saturday] and [Sunday] to show them how to do the ropes,” Allen said. “[Sunday] we came in and stained the drums and put the heads on them.”

Kevin Spivey, a sophomore in aerospace engineering, said he had wanted to make a hand drum for a while.

“I’m not good with the actual drum set that requires the drum sticks, so I wanted to have one of these [drums]. But looking online they cost so much money. I’ve seen some on eBay that cost $200-$300,” Spivey said. “This class was $41 and I got to make it myself. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Spivey said the work was not very difficult, just tedious.

“It takes time, it takes patience, especially when you have to shave the wood and make it into a circle. Other than that, it’s every bit worth the time and the effort you put into it,” Spivey said. “The rest of it was easy and I really liked the challenge of spending hours of time getting it just right. That was my favorite part — trying to form it how I wanted it.”

Spivey said when he finishes his drum he plans to carve a cross and a Bible verse on the side to personalize it.

Erin McKenney, a master’s student in animal nutrition, said the drum-making workshop was one of two events she was interested in at the Craft Center.

“It’s a great, hands-on experience. It’s been very repetitive, so when you’re planing the entire drum a lot of it is figuring out the most ergonomic way to hold your body to do this process that you’re going to do for two hours to get your drum to a perfect stance or smoothness,” McKenney said. “You’re kind of learning about yourself in the process of making your drum and it gives you something to concentrate on besides schoolwork, which is really great and really cathartic.”

McKenney said she was making her drum to give to her brother as a gift.

“I wanted to make sure this was a good template because I wanted to make a drum for my brother, either for his birthday or for Christmas. So a lot of it was just making [the drum] my own,” McKenney said. “I love that deep, rich mahogany stain, but at the same time I’m making sure it’s not too ornate or weird that I could definitely replicate this.”

Stephen Dozier, a sophomore in biological sciences, said he has been drumming for about eight years and has always wondered how to make the type of drum featured at the workshop.

“You get to pick up these miraculous things and you wonder ‘how do they get there?’ I own a Djembe, which is something similar to what we’re making, but I’ve always wanted to make one,” Dozier said. “My sister went to Ghana on a study abroad trip and she bought me [a Djembe] that they had made over there for about $10, which they retail here for about $60. It’s quite an investment.”

Dozier said he does not own a drum on campus and the workshop was a great opportunity for him to now only own a drum on campus, but to have made it himself.

“It’s a learning process and it was actually really fun. The only part that wasn’t that fun was carving it down and making it more into a sloped, tapering, shell thing,” Dozier said. “Tapering it was the hardest part because it was a day’s process and it was extremely physically exerting, but I would say rewarding in the end. If it sounds good, then it was rewarding; if it doesn’t sound good then it might not be as rewarding.”

Dozier said that while he did personalize his drum, it was originally on accident.

“I put nicks at the bottom. Initially it was unintentional, but I ran with it and it makes a pretty cool design,” Dozier said. “We used an old tablecloth that had glossy wax on it and so [the canvas top] looks very psychedelic.”

Craft Center Director George Thomas said there will be another drum making workshop offered to the general public during the spring semester.