Posts Tagged drum circles

“Show & Tell” is a series presenting the personal art, crafts, projects and creative endeavors of people in the Zoic Studios community. If you’re a Zoic artist, freelancer or staffer, and want to share your creativity with the IDYE community, let me know!

On the last Saturday of each month, Zoic Studios’ commercial creative director Leslie Ekker organizes the Culver City Drum Circle at Media Park in Culver City.

Ekker explains how he came to create the event:

“I really enjoy hand drumming, and I only normally get to do it when we visit our friends up in Santa Barbara. And so one day I said ‘@#%& it, I’m starting my own drum circle, here in LA,’ in Culver City in fact.

“So I did a quick search online and found there weren’t any [drum circles locally]. There’s the Venice drum circle, and there’s one in Pasadena, maybe one in Long Beach occasionally. They’re either too far, or too weird – the Venice drum circle can get really crazy, and it’s not liked by a lot of drummers, I’m finding out now.

“I found a web site called meetup.com, and I started the drum circle [in May 2008]. The first month I had three people, which is barely enough, and it was freezing cold. The next month I had 10 people, and the next month I had 15, and it’s now averaging about 20 to 25 people. It’s great because I have well over a hundred members and lots of active, regular attendees.

“The location I found for it is really ideal. It’s a park in Culver City that’s one of our oldest parks, with beautiful old trees.” Media Park is located at The Ivy Substation, a 99-seat theatre facility located in the heart of Culver City’s historic downtown. Tim Robbins’ The Actors’ Gang is the resident company. The Ivy Substation was built in 1907 by the Los Angeles Pacific Railway Company, which operated the city’s famous Red Cars. The Ivy was part of the electrical generation and distribution system for the Red Cars.

Ekker collaborates with the businesses surrounding the park, and with the Culver City Redevelopment Agency that operates the park. “They are actually very excited about the event and they support it,” he says.

“Every time we play, someone will drive by on Venice or Culver and hear it, and pull over and walk towards the sound, and find us and sit down and start drumming and join the group. I’ve got several regulars who found us that way. Very interesting people, from every nationality, too – a lot of international people.

“Most of us play the djembe, which is the African hand drum. It’s the most popular hand drum in the world. I have five drums; three djembes, and a dumbek, and a drum that I made as a project. It’s a homemade drum made of cast-off materials — a piece of scrap PVC sewer pipe from my neighborhood, a metal hoop that I bent and welded, a piece of truck tarp for the drum head, and then just some parachute cord for tightening lines. I wanted to develop a drum that could be built by high school students, very cheaply or for free or with donated materials. I’d like to develop a program where high school kids build drums, and then come and join the drum circle with their own drums. There would be no real expenditure; and this gets kids into the community, and gets them to experience group music and some of the African culture that we talk about and practice.

“We also get people who show up to dance, and even sing. People have brought other instruments. It’s all been a wonderfully surprising and connecting community event. It’s becoming something that people actually look forward to. I’ve had people walk by and say ‘oh yeah we come every month.’ In the summertime you see families come and stay in the park and have a picnic with their kids, who will come over and ring bells and shake shakers and drum drums.

“It’s something that’s so rewarding, because people appreciate it so much. And they really want it –they need it in their lives. It’s a way of building community, something that we don’t have a lot of in LA.”

The next Culver City Drum Circle will take place this Saturday, December 26th, at noon, and will last for 3 or 4 hours. For more information about this and future meetings, visit meetup.com.