Staunton School Board member takes trip of a lifetime to Guinea to study West African rhythms

STAUNTON — Just prior to the pandemic, Stephanie Mason and her Staunton High School step team were invited to take part in Harrisonburg's International Festival. That's where she first met Mike Deaton, a local musician who studies West African drumming.

His performance captivated Mason, who wanted to bring what Deaton did to her step team members. Mason played the piano, but not many other instruments, focusing instead on dance, but she realized drumming and dancing were very similar, saying the rhythms go hand-in-hand.

"So then I had to get my own drum and then did it with the step team and if I'm going to play an instrument, I want to take classes with the instrument," Mason said. "Then Mike and I became friends and it just like spiraled from there."

Recently, Mason returned from a month-long trip to Africa to continue studying drumming and dancing.

Formerly a Spanish teacher at both Shelburne Middle and Staunton High, Mason was struggling with burnout. COVID, plus the usual stress of teaching, was weighing on her, but it was a personal tragedy that really took a toll on Mason. Her partner died in a car wreck in April 2021, leaving Mason lost. She decided she needed a change from teaching, so she left the profession following the spring of 2022.

"After I quit teaching I thought this is the perfect time to do something crazy," Mason said. "If I had a full-time job, I wouldn't have been able to go for four weeks. It was a perfect transitionary period."

In Africa, she studied under Bolokada Conde, a master on the djembe, a goblet-shaped drum traditionally carved from a single piece of African hardwood and topped with an animal skin as a drumhead. Conde, originally from Morowaya, Guinea, is prolific in Malinke rhythms, traveling the world with Les Percussion du Guinee. He also teaches and performs in the United States.

Mason met Conde at a Sawah African drum and dance festival in New Jersey. He told her she was a natural with the rhythms and asked her to consider a trip to Africa where she could study further. At the time she had no idea who he was or that he was famous in the world of West African drumming. She didn't find out until she mentioned it to Deaton.

"A lot of the African drummers, they're really talented, really skilled, but their teaching skills are lacking," Mason said. "He's one of the rare ones, a great teacher in addition to being a great drummer and a great dancer."

A lot of her ability to go to Africa hinged on winning a school board seat. After quitting teaching, Mason ran for an open seat on the Staunton School board this past November. She spent last semester as a long-term sub at Shelburne, but knew that if she won the election she'd not return to Shelburne, opening up an opportunity to travel to Africa. If she had lost the election she said the trip would have been up in the air. She won.

Mason left for the trip Jan. 6, flying from Washington, D.C. to New York to Paris to Freetown, Sierra Leone, on the border of Guinea. During the trip, the group traveled throughout Guinea, with stops in Conakry, Morowaya, Kouroussa, and Kissidougou.

The trip to Morowaya was maybe the most interesting.

"To get there, you had to literally drive through a river," Mason said. "The people got out and pushed the vans to get there. There was no accessible road."

Days consisted of a 90-minute drum class and a 90-minute dance class both in the morning and afternoon, with a break for lunch. They ate dinner around 8 or 9 p.m. Travel days were usually a full-day as well. The group stayed with Conde, who had houses in three of the cities. The money the group spent on the classes went to help the people in the cities they visited.

What the students learned in class they got to perform with the people living in the villages.

"One of the villages was getting their first road," Mason said. "So we learned a rhythm that is played for getting new roads, and then we played it. It was not just a performance, we performed it in the correct context, which was invaluable."

Mason would like to take the experiences from this trip and bring it back to the students of Staunton. She's reaching out to teachers throughout the division, offering to come with her djembe and work with students on West African rhythm and dance.

She'd like to share her experiences with language classes about the challenges she faced with a group of 16 people speaking several languages that ranged from Maninka to French to Chinese to Spanish. She also would like to share the experience of living in another culture for a month, learning to think on her feet and navigate something completely different than what she's used to.

This isn't the end of her studying West African drumming and dancing, either.

"I'll be taking drum classes from Mike Deaton soon to further my studies," Mason said. "He does drumming for wellness classes, and does other cool rhythm workshops in the area. The learning never stops."

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— Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Stephanie Mason travels to Guinea to study West African drumming, dancing