Gasps, applause and cheers rang through the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium during Saturday night’s Global Excursions Concert.
The performance was the finale of the week-long, fourth-annual World Music and Dance Festival. During the show, Ohio University alumni, students and special guests showcased their talents in the form of songs and dances.
“When I’m up on stage, I feel good,” said Brittany Brunty, a performer who graduated in 2011 with an exercise physiology degree. “You just do what you feel. Let it all loose, hear the music and you move to it and it makes you feel good inside and in your heart and that’s what comes out when you dance.”
Some performers majored in dance or music, but others followed a different path.
“I got involved with this my freshman year. I wanted to take a dance class,” Brunty said. “I saw African dance and I said, ‘That sounds like fun’ and that’s how I met Zelma (Badu-Younge, a dance professor) and she told me about her company, Azaguno, and I auditioned for it and I’ve been with them ever since.”
The performers onstage fed off the energy from an engaged audience; during the show the audience would scream and clap for the performers.
“My favorite part about the performance was the intense truth and life that there is in such full movement,” said Shiloh Morgenstern, a 2010 OU graduate with a degree in acting. “My friend is in the performance and she said that she might be moving out of town, so I had to come and see her.”
For some performers in Azaguno and other groups, their time onstage is coming to an end, but with the success of the concert, it was a memorable finale.
“I’ve seen Azaguno perform a couple times and this was the most life that I’ve seen them have,” Morgenstern said. “I’ve done some African dance as well, so to know what that’s like with the breathing, when you’re breathing as a group like that it’s so important.”
One of the special guests Saturday was Ellie Mannette, the “grandfather” of the steel drum.
The program explained that Mannette invented the steel drum in his head during a dream and then sketched out a drawing and immediately had to go out and make his dream come to life.
“I really enjoyed watching Dr. Ellie Mannette play,” said Jenna Cripps, a junior studying anthropology and global studies with a focus on African studies. “ It’s really fascinating to see someone who created an instrument actually play it. I’ve heard a lot of his stories and he really did give up his entire life to do that.”
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This article appeared in print under the headline "Arts festival ends with concert at MemAud"
