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WOFA
WOFA performs 7 p.m. Sunday at Leeward Community College.
"Wofa" means "come along" in the Soso dialect of West Africa. WOFA, the troupe, comprises 10 musicians and dancers from the Saussou clan in French-speaking Guinea.
As in "Stomp!," WOFA features a percussive ballet of rhythms. But where stomp served up urban, street-smart ambience, WOFA shares the dance and music of the lower coast of Guinea, drawing inspiration from African village life.
Founded in 1993, WOFA's artistic director is master drummer Francois Kokelaere, who incorporates such instruments as the kryin (tree trunk-shaped wooden drum), the djembe, and wasskhoumba (small calabash discs of varying size, strung onto a piece of curved wood).
Kokelaere says African rhythms are subject to constant transformations due to "the arrival of electricity and its 'best friend' television and the mixing of populations."
However, he contends true African contemporary art only can be maintained by artists connected to ancestral tradition, a relationship that he says is still present in Guinea.
Tickets for WOFA are $17.50 for adults, $15 for students, senior citizens and military personnel.
Tickets are available at the LCC box office. Call 455-0385.
Genoa Keawe; kumu hula Mapuana de Silva's women of Halau Mohala 'Ilima; kumu hula Kaha'i Topolinski's men of Ka Pa Hula Hawai'i; and Lihau, a Niihau choral group, will be among the performers at Hawaii Theatre Saturday. Halau helping halau
"Eia Hawai'i, He Moku, He Kanaka" is a benefit concert of music and dance for Halau Haloa, which is raising funds to travel to the 8th Festival of Pacific Arts in New Caledonia in October. More than 2,000 artists, representing 27 countries from the Pacific region, are expected to attend the event.
Saturday's performance will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $27, available at the Hawaii Theatre box office. Tickets can be charged at 528-0506.
Also featured Saturday will be works by Meleana Meyer, Maile Andrade, Mahealani Dudoit and many more visual artists.
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