Portsmouth hosts Multicultural Music Festival

On July 28, Portsmouth will reinforce its status as the cultural hub of the Seacoast with the first Multicultural Music Festival, which the Seacoast African American Cultural Center hopes to turn into an annual event.

In addition to offering powerful, rhythmic music and feverish dancing, event organizers hope the festival will educate attendees about modern music’s thick roots in African culture. Performers will cross ethnic boundaries and mix musical genres to demonstrate the range of styles that have evolved out of African drumming.

Festival producer and SAACC board member Sandi Clark said she originally hoped to hold the event at Odiorne State Park in Rye but eventually opted for a smaller scale gathering in the group’s main building, the Connie Bean Center, on Daniel Street in Portsmouth. “Our earlier intentions were to put this on at Odiorne Park, but when you think about a (daylong) festival, you start talking about money, and you need large sponsorship to make this happen,” Clark said. “We decided, for this year, to downsize it to test the waters and give ourselves a year to plan and prepare for next year’s festival.”

Despite the cautious approach to this year’s show, the festival’s itinerary is impressive, especially for an event that’s just getting off the ground. One of the festival’s most notable acts is the African drum and dance group The Vanginanga Troupe, which originated in Rwanda. The members of The Vanginanga Troupe survived the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and they frequently draw on their experiences in their songs and dances, taking a leading role in the musical community as ambassadors for their culture and country. In addition to wearing colorful attire and executing dances that are slightly reminiscent of classical ballet, Vanginanga also wields a variety of exotic instruments, including the ingoma (a large wooden drum), the amakondera (a bullhorn often used for long-range signal communication) and the inanga (a zither-style instrument resembling a small, stringed surfboard).

Clark said African drums will be featured heavily due to their large influence on many other kinds of music. Ben Baldwin, a drum and jazz instructor at Berwick Academy, shed some light on the connection between traditional African drumming and modern music.

“When the Africans were dragged over here, they brought their rhythms with them, and it just had to come out,” Baldwin said. “It did, too, in gospel, blues, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, and it collided with just about all the other ethnic offerings that other immigrants brought.” African drumming has also had a huge influence on many familiar modern dances. “If you look at The Temptations doing those Motown steps, it just looks so cool. It looks African,” Baldwin said. “But drum beats aren’t just for partying. They’re for telling stories through dance. Many African drum beats are based on the reenacting of rituals or stories in African communities. Today, though, the connection with dance is always there. I mean, if you’re beating on drums, usually people are dancing.”

Many local musicians will play the blues, R&B, jazz and gospel at the festival on Saturday. James “Batman” Kaddy heads up a blues band, and Russ Grazier, director of the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center, has put together a four-piece jazz group for the show. Although the festival is primarily a musical celebration, it will also include other culturally significant features, including ethnic foods, art, and dance numbers from the Baha’I Youth Step Dancing Group of Eliot, Maine.

Next year, Clark hopes to increase the festival’s scope, as well as its size. “I’d like to add Latin dancing, Irish step dancing, steel drum music, more international foods and get some folk singers and dancing,” she said. “There’s a lot going on in Portsmouth, and we just want to add to that.”

The music festival runs from 1-6 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children.