Kunama Mtendaji, a storyteller, will visit Brown Elementary School during the school’s family night, which takes place after the monthly PTA meeting. This month’s activity is “Words from the Drum,” Tuesday, January 17 at 6:30 p.m.
Mtendaji plays African drums, sings and dances in addition to relating stories, which are loaded with African-American folklore, vivid imagery and more than a hint of mystery. His stories will keep listeners on the edges of their seats and he enhances them by selecting audience members to participate in music and dances originating from the United States, Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean.
Kunama specializes in drumming and dance styles from Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Ghana, Guinea and the Ivory Coast. His repertoire of oral traditions includes stories from western, central, eastern and southern Africa.
According to his World African Arts website, www.kunamamtendaji.com, his parents are from a small town in central Missouri. There, as a child, he listened to poems, riddles, rhymes, songs and stories of his parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles at a period in American history when family entertainment was more internal (live performance) than external (movies, television, the Internet, etc.).
Kunama became inspired by talented Missouri legends, like George Washington Carver, Scott Joplin, Langston Hughes, Clark Terry and others. He considers it a priority to study and promote the folklore of his surrounding environment and the source of that folklore, which begins in Africa.