Friday, December 11 @ 6pm: Forum (free admission) Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 @ 2pm: Yoruba dance classes Saturday 12 @ 7pm & Sunday 13 @ 5pm: Virtual Concert
This year's Osun festival is dedicated to Baba Bisi Adeleke
Bisi Adeleke has been Manga's talking drum player for the annual Osun for about 23 years. With Manga African Dance's founder, Ramatu Afegbua-Sabbat, they brought Osun Festival to live in Atlanta, GA. Born in Yorubaland, Nigeria, into the lineage of professional Praise Talking Drummers, Adebisi Adeleke is a fourth- generation Master drummer who learned the art from his father. "Bisi" was educated in his native Nigeria at the University of Ibadan. He was a Yoruba music teacher in the music department of the Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria. Bisi toured the United States, Holland, West Germany, and Japan with Showcase Ensemble University of Ibadan. He was featured as talking drummer in the film Kongi's Harvest, written by Wole Soyinka, Nobel Poet Laureate. A former artist in residence at the university of Washington's Ethnomusicoloy Division, he lives in Atlanta, GA, and participated in that city's 1996 Cultural Olympiad. He performed with the former Young Audiences Program of the Woodruff Arts Center for 14 years. Adeleke's personal mission is to explain the role of the drum in African culture.
