Preparations are in top gear to ensure the Children African Drum Experience (CADEX) achieves remarkable success and turns out to what children excitedly look forward to every year. From the stable of Declassical Arts & Entertainment, it is scheduled to hold from July 3 through to the 14th at 33 Glover Street, Adekunle, Yaba, Lagos from 10am to 2pm daily.
CADEX is a platform for exposing children to a variety of African drumming skills, rich African folktales to be performed stylishly by experts with profound musical accompaniment, poetry, drama and general musical skills. The program becomes invaluable particularly at a time when westernisation has almost eroded African traditional values amongst our children.
“The initiator of the programme realises that children of this generation have been too exposed to western knowledge and would want to use this medium to creatively restore them to their African heritage. It is a way of exposing them to African values and refreshing their minds on what they might have forgotten. It is about impacting knowledge both in practical terms and in theory,” says Ayo Ajayi, head of organizing committee.
The two-week programme aims to instill and groom artistic gifts in children because often times, regular schools don’t give them such opportunity to express such talents. It is to enable children express themselves artistically, to improve them in all facets for a more realistic outlook, knowing that life isn’t one way.
“It has been proven over and again that children who imbibe musical skills at early age develop sharper intelligence quotient,” says Ms. Idono Onyibe who will serve as music instructor at the event.
Since African stories are known to be highly didactic, the children would have enough moral lessons to learn from the pool of stories drawn from different countries across the continent. More information is available on the organiser’s website, www.declassical.com.