May 20, 2022
Oakland University Professors Mark Stone and Jeremy Barnett recently led six students from the School of Music, Theatre and Dance on a Global Arts Study Abroad trip to Ghana, West Africa, where they spent more than a week learning about the country’s rich history, music and culture.
“It felt like going home,” said Stone, an associate professor of world music and percussion at OU. “I have really strong connections to Ghana, and people there that are like family to me.”
Stone first visited the Ghana 30 years ago as a student at the University of Michigan. This trip marked his first time back to the country since his friend and mentor, Bernard Woma — a musician, composer, and educator from the Upper West Region of Ghana — passed away.
“It was very emotional for me the first day to go there and see Rita Woma, Bernard’s widow, and to see Bernard’s kids and his brothers and sisters,” Stone said. “That was very important for me personally.”
The Study Abroad group departed for Ghana on February 25 and returned on March 6.
During the trip, graduate students Renee Kuczeski, Braden Macchia, and Dan Shiller — together with undergraduate students Adanna Walker, Trey Martin, and Jake Voight — studied drum, xylophone, dance, and song traditions of Ghana at the Dagara Music Center, which was founded by Woma.
“Bernard also had created a group called Saakumu, which is a dance group that toured the U.S. prior to the pandemic for 10 years straight,” Stone said. “Most of the classes at the Dagara Music Center — the music classes, the dance classes, the vocal classes — are all taught by members of Saakumu. The quality of instruction is very high. It's a real testament to Bernard, that what he created is still carrying on very strongly after his passing.”
In addition, the students took in performances at +233 Jazz Club and Abojo Culture + Art Café. They also visited Ghana’s National Theatre, Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, and Art Center in Acca and travelled to Cape Coast where they toured Cape Coast Castle and Kakum National Park while staying at the Anomabo Beach Resort.
“This trip was unlike anything I have been a part of before,” said Vought, who is a world music minor and vice president of the percussion student org. “Having spent a lot of time learning this music at Oakland over the past three years, it was extremely cool to apply it and get to learn more from where it all originated from. The biggest highlight of the trip for me was getting to jam with other musicians out of the blue at a restaurant in Accra while waiting for our food.”
For Daniel Shiller, a recent graduate student of world percussion at OU, a highlight of the trip was being able to see his friends at the Dagara Music Center again, as well as being able to share the experience with the new friends he made at Oakland.
“This was my second time going to the Dagara Music Center in Ghana, and it felt like I never left,” he said. “I immediately jumped back into habits around the school, remembered old face, and could somewhat figure out where I was throughout the city.
“This trip helped me see how different people across the globe can be,” Shiller added. “That one way of doing even the smallest thing is not the only or correct way. Going back, I did not have the shock and awe of being in a new country for the first time, so I was able to take in more nuances of the culture and people, which I thoroughly enjoyed.”
As the first OU faculty led study abroad program and the first group to study at the Dagara Music Center since the beginning of the pandemic, Stone said the students represented Oakland University throughout the entire trip with grace and distinction.
“I'm super proud of all of them,” he said. “They all learned so much and their performance when they came back was excellent. They learned some of this music that we went to study and they understand the cultural context of it, not just to be able to play it, but to understand where it comes from.”
Stone also praised the university’s Global Arts Study Abroad program, which he said allows students to develop a “global perspective.”
“They get a sense of the oneness of humanity; that these national boundaries that we're hemmed in by, can be transcended,” he said. “We can make friends halfway around the world and make lifelong friends. The music is a pathway to achieving that, but for me, the most important part of the trip is getting that global perspective.”
To learn more about Oakland University’s Global Arts in Ghana program, visit https://oakland.edu/ie/ou-programs/ghana or contact Professor Mark Stone at [email protected]. The next Global Arts Program will take place in St. Lucia during the 2023 winter semester and the next OU trip to Ghana is planned for the summer 1 semester of 2024.