Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 301; Talise Campbell interview, part 3 of 6

Q:

TALISE: Mama Fasi was, um, the artistic vision for Imani African American Dance Company. We also had Mama Givitta (SP?) who was the choreographer and artistic director as well but she was more of the, the music behind the company, she was the person that brought the music and brought the feminine vibe to drumming, you know, which, of course when you, when you look at the history of African drumming it was something that women weren't supposed to do. They weren't supposed to drum. So, she was that person that said, yeah, we can drum, we can do this. You know, and it, it set a standard here in our community where other women and, and children, um, that were female were saying, you know what, we can do this. We can study this culture and study drumming and we can do this.

Q:

TALISE: There was nothing here. Nobody was studying African culture, that was kind of taboo. Nobody was doing that, nobody was playing drums, nobody was singing songs from, from Africa with African words and different languages. Nobody was doing that here in our community. Nobody was coming together to build, to create to assist and to help, nobody was doing that. She was the catapult, she was the person who was that for Cleveland, Ohio. She was that person and since then, there've been numerous dance companies, African dance companies that were formed from her, from her. They had Dance Africa Dance with Akil Marshall here in the city. We had Djapo Cultural Arts with myself here in this community. It all started with her, it did.

Q:

TALISE: Mama Fasi and her drumming, if you ever see her drum everything is intrinsic, everything comes from her insides. If you see her drumming, she closes her eyes, she makes sounds, she makes noises, it's true, it's pure, it's coming from inside and it makes her a phenomenal drummer, phenomenal. I always say, because I'm a dancer, show me five of... this thing... when they say show me five of your friends that would tell me who you are. I always say, uh, let me... let's come on the dance floor and I can read you, I can tell you whole story but Mama Fasi, with her drumming, you can tell a story about her whole life, just watching her play, just watching her enthusiasm, her spiritual connectedness to the drum. You can see it when she plays and it's just phenomenal, she's a phenomenal woman.

Q:

TALISE: Well, I, I look at myself and I see how the first time I heard drumming was from her. It was my first time hearing African drums and it changed my life. So, I could only imagine the first time touching skin which came from a living thing, you know, the base of the drum which is wood which comes from a tree, its life. So, being able to bring that back to life from a first hit I could only imagine how she must have felt and being able to go from that first hit and change communities not only here in Costa Rica and all the places that she's ever touched, she's left light. Light where folks can take that light and keep going and keep going, you know, she passes the torch wherever she lands. And, that's just an awesome thing.

Q:

TALISE: Being able to experience drumming not just with male energy, being able to experience that with other feminine energy could change your life forever, especially when it's taboo for a woman to pick up a drum, to play a drum. For you to be able to be in a space where there's other women who's bringing this instrument to life is life altering, it's truly life altering. When... in my travels to Africa I see women drumming and it's awesome, it's an awesome experience that, um, you can't even really speak of, it's something that's intrinsic, it's inside of your body, it's an in body experience, that's just awesome.

Q:

TALISE: For me, an artistic educator is someone who can teach but not only teach but find a way to look in someone's eyes and spiritual be able to see what that person needs, each individual person, to be able to, um, look at that person and say, this is what you need and maybe it's dance, maybe it's something spiritual, a spiritual healing, maybe it's drumming, whatever it is, for you to be able to have that gift cause not everyone has that, you know, we have people who, um, they go to school, they study, um, and they have a lot of information but they can't give that information to anybody because they don't have that artistic element and that's what Mama Fasi has. She is an artistic educator. She is somebody who takes her art, her art form and able to look at someone and give them whatever it is that they need, educationally.

Q:

TALISE: It's her calling. It's her calling. Um, I believe that everybody has destiny and she was one who was destined to teach, she was destined to give people light and give people music. The same thing happened with me, she was my first. She basically pulled me off the floor and said, dance. The same way she pulled the woman off the street and said, come in here and drum. It changes lives. It changes lives and it comes with a sacrifice. It comes with a heavy sacrifice and a heavy load that she has had to bear with trying to preserve culture, trying to keep our culture alive within communities where it's very... it's not supported, you know, as much as it is in other arenas. But, um, I applaud her, I applaud her for all of her sacrifice.

Q:

TALISE: Well, we can go way back, um, to the middle passage. Those mental chains of slavery are still existent today. People don't know about Africa, they don't know about where they come from. They have no idea. I teach in a lot of various arenas, I teach at private schools where they are predominately Caucasian children and my first question that I ask all of my students is, tell me one thing that you know about Africa. And, when I go to these independent schools and these private schools, they can run it down to me, they can tell me about Africa, the various countries, the different languages that they speak but when I go into our community where the children look like me, I say, tell me if you know anything about Africa, just one thing. And, a lot of them say, pass, pass, pass, pass, I don't know. Well, they don't have shoes, ah, they eat, the eat rats and roaches, the swing from trees. So, when you have this concept in your mind about self, cause that's really what it is, it's about self that Africa is dirty. They don't have food in Africa, everybody is starving, why do you want to learn about it? Why do you want to play drums? They do that in the woods. That's the conception, the misconception that our children have in our communities. And, so programming, cultural arts programming especially for children of African descent is so important because it builds self-esteem. When you know about yourself you can know where you're going and the majority of the children today do not know about self and that's one of the largest problems that we're having in our schools today is that children don't know about self. So, you can't teach math, science and English and all these other things when you're not addressing that and that's culture, its culture.