Early into the new millennium I had the good fortune to meet renowned djembe drummer, designer, pedagogist and multi-percussionist Paulo Mattioli, and in that instant my life dramatically shifted.
During an East Coast promotional tour in May 2001, Paulo was presenting a djembe drum clinic at Kutztown University and we arranged a meeting following the clinic. Several persons had highly recommended I meet him; so, using the contact form on his website I requested a meeting and included a link to my website hoping he’d take a look to gain a sense of my background. At the agreed upon time and place, we met and within moments of our meeting, a friendship began to blossom and he spontaneously invited me to help facilitate his annual week-long retreat at Camp Kaenae* in Maui, HI. He asked me to co-facilitate frame drum and dance classes and since I also had good office admin skills, he entrusted me with tracking & collecting registrations and related fees, etc. Paulo’s trust in me on all levels gave lift off to a vision I’d long held that I could indeed be of service on many levels in the conceptualization and realization of meaningful drum & dance experiences!
Subsequently we partnered in the production of many programs including multi-day retreats in CA, HI & PA, corporate drum circles, etc., until his untimely passing in 2011. Over the course of those ten years, I feel blessed beyond measure to say our friendship deepened into a beautiful bond. Treasured among the many collaborations during our professional partnership, one lovely outcome was the Rainbows CD recording, and in 2004 we shared the Musikfest stage (see photo below). He is dearly missed indeed but… His 🌟LIGHT🌟 shines on through the hearts and minds of everyone who had the good fortune to share his joy of drumming.
One of my favorite memories (there are sooooooooo many) was a ‘moment’ at a 4-day retreat we co-facilitated on Oahu, the third largest Hawaiian island, appropriately called “The Gathering Place.” Every evening about an hour after dinner, the retreat participants would gather at the fire pit where slowly but steadily a wonderful rhythm would commence and each participant would contribute his/her unique sound to the rhythm/music-making. The final evening, long before that appointed ‘hour’ I meandered down to the fire pit and found Paulo already relaxed into a slow groove, playing his djembe with his eyes closed. I positioned myself behind a dunun (also spelled dundun), a rope-tuned cylindrical drum with a rawhide skin at both ends that is played with a stick. I started out tapping lightly so as not to disturb his blissful, quiet, private moment yet wanting to play along. I continued to improvise with his rhythm finding my own groove and then sticking to it, he started to improvise to the rhythm I was playing… and then in typical fashion, Paulo beamed his big ol’ smile at me with his eyes twinkling and it felt like a suspended moment in time floating somewhere between the earthly and heavenly planes as we two grooved for a nice little while… until one by one other participants joined us.
A lil’ trip down memory lane…
to aforementioned
2004 Musikfest Performance
… and in 2005, my son Michael’s senior year at Whitehall High School, Paulo led the entire student body ~ 1,100 students ~ in a drum circle on Friday afternoon May 6. He brought 750 drums to the school and invited me, Toni Kellar and Grant Smith to assist in leading the students in various world rhythms. This event wrapped up the school’s Multicultural Celebration Week.
An African proverb says: If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing.
Similarly, drumming and dance go hand in hand ~ As a dancer you personify the drum and as a drummer you must inspire the dancer ~ simply put, you must learn both!
If you drum, you dance and if you dance, you drum!
– Paulo Mattioli
I am the drum, you are the drum, and we are the drum. Because the whole world revolves in rhythm, and rhythm is the soul of life, for everything that we do in life is in rhythm.
– Babatunde Olatunji
Nigerian drummer who his widow said, ‘…saw himself as a pan-Africanist who always reached out to unify Africans and African Americans.” Read more, Click here
Paulo was often heard encouraging those who doubted their ability to drum:
If your heart is beating,
you’ve got rhythm!
and….
If you can say it,
you can play it!
[…] re-connecting with my friend Debbie Barnett who I met years earlier at Paulo Mattioli‘s Rhythm Ranch […]