Gregory Acker

My interest in world music evolved during two terms of service in the Peace Corps in Africa, where I experienced the power of music and related art forms in building a sense of community. After extensive classical and jazz training in high school and college, my perspective broadened as I observed the inclusive nature of the arts as practiced in the traditional societies where I lived. Everyone was expected and encouraged to participate in community celebrations and gatherings. "No bad dance ever hurt the earth" is one Ghanaian proverb that has certainly helped me to join in!

After Peace Corps, I began working as an artist-in-residence, sharing the music, folktales, and personal experiences that changed my life. In order to further my education as a cross-cultural educator with participatory music as a mainstay, I attended graduate school in Ethnomusicology at (Connecticut) Wesleyan University (MA Ethnomusicology 1998). This allowed me to train directly under master musicians/teachers Abraham Adzenyah (Music and Culture of West Africa), Pak Harjito and Sumarsam (Gamelan Music of Java, Indonesia), and T. Viswanathan (Music of South India). These experiences were enhanced by two study tours (2-3 months) in South India and Indonesia. In order to be able to share these world musics with folks back home, I also studied under musical instrument builders Dr. Dennis Waring, and Dr. Fred Stubbs, and designed and constructed low-cost (hardware store materials) instrument ensembles for African, Indonesian, and other world musics.

Since graduate school, I have continued to work as an artist-in-residence/project coordinator for arts and culture initiatives. I concentrate much of my residency work on youth in treatment, students with disabilities (VSA Arts Master Artist), and recent immigrants and refugees. I have built adaptive sets of instruments and designed teaching processes that emphasize collaboration in a multi-disciplinary setting. I also present for local and regional social service, arts, and educational organizations, and teach university courses on world music.

10-day residency with Primary Students: Gamelan Music/Shadow Puppetry.  Students will create and perform a shadow-puppet show with musical accompaniment on homemade gamelan instruments (Indonesian-style percussion ensemble). Students will compose their own musical compositions, write accompanying songs, build and decorate their own shadow puppets, and develop dramatic dialogue and movement for their puppets. As a result, students will learn not only about the arts and culture of Indonesia, but will utilize collaborative creative processes to insure maximum participation. Digital photos will document the process of the project, and an audio CD or video will be developed as a final product.

A hands-on teaching approach is used throughout the residency. Students are provided with the tools and strategies to collaborate on a multi-media, cross-cultural performance. Most activities (music composition, songwriting, puppet-making, dialogue writing) begin with an artist demonstration, moving to student participation, and then student creation with artist/teacher supervision and participation. Inclusion of all participants is a primary goal for each residency, and multiple art forms encourage students to try numerous avenues of creative expression. I've also designed musical instruments which do not require reading Western-style music, and which are accessible to students with mobility, hearing, vision, or mental disabilities.

This project fits into a larger community education program by encouraging learning about unfamiliar cultures, as well as by offering an "arts-for-everyone" approach that emphasizes total group participation. Student projects may focus on a theme chosen by the group or suggested by the teacher (one group in Owensboro wrote music about a tornado they had survived; other projects have included advice to other youth on how to stay out of trouble, a vernacular version of Hamlet, a project about dreams, and even a shadow-show about hairstyles). This work may interest teachers because of the diversity of arts disciplines involved, the emphasis on learner-driven creation, the attention to collaboration and cooperation, and the possibilities for cross-cultural understanding.