Exciting Season 2006!
South Sound Kids Drum & Dance is celebrating its 6th year in action. Our local schools this season are Lincoln Elementary School (Olympia), Michael T. Simmons E.S. (Tumwater), Chinook Middle School (North Thurston), and Seven Oaks E.S. (North Thurston).

Each school is tailoring its own program with SSKDD based on experience and student interest. SSKDD is providing instruments and stipends for teachers to hire artists to conduct workshops and/or perform at their schools.

We’re all looking forward to the Procession of the Species, where most of our students will strut their stuff, on Saturday April 29th. And the following Monday, May 1st, we’ll keep the party going at our annual Samba Skate at Skateland. Eduardo Mendonça, a most wonderful Brazilian musician and teacher, will return to lead the all-schools jam at Samba Skate. ALL are welcome!

Meet Our Schools
Thank you, Seven Oaks!
Debbie Hathaway (that’s her above), music teacher at Seven Oaks, has invited us in to her classroom this year to video the process she uses, starting with day one and continuing through to the Procession. With luck, we’ll be able to show the world how Seven Oaks creates a great rhythm and dance ensemble year after year.

Go Michael T. Simmons!
Gabi Taheri and Sara Glass kicked off the year at Michael T. Simmons with percussionist Geoff Johns. The entire 5th and 6th grade classes were exposed to making the interlocking calypso rhythms of Trinidad. The Michael T. Simmons ensemble is cruising along, successfully staging their first dress rehearsal of both dancers and drummers last week.

Intrepid dancers & drummers at Chinook Middle School!
Norma Sassone and her students get their blood flowing at 7 am with their before-school drum and dance class. As Ms. Sassone says, “You know that whoever shows up that early is truly dedicated.” They are a small-but-sharp group who have been working on rhythms and dances for the past two months.

Lincoln rocks!
The bells are ringing (agogo bells, that is) at Lincoln! Like the energizer bunny, the music just goes on and on at Lincoln. Thanks to Rich Sikorski and the parents who make it happen. Samba on!

A Brief History
South Sound Kids Drum & Dance was born in 1999 from the hearts and minds of educators, social service providers, parents, amateur musicians, dancers and others who believe music and dance are a big part of what it means to be human. We know from our personal experience and from working with hundreds of students and dozens of teachers that for some people, music and dance hold the key to really feeling alive.

We work with public schools, supplying educators with the tools they need to create rhythm and dance ensembles in their schools, drawing on traditions from around the world. Specifically, we deliver music and dance workshops with some of the finest teachers in the Puget Sound region, artists in the classrooms, and the use of our extensive instrument library.

In our six years, we’ve worked with 15 schools in 5 school districts in Thurston County, and helped to create 28 performance ensembles. Elementary Schools in the greater Olympia area that we’ve worked with include Seven Oaks, Peter G. Schmidt, East Olympia, Evergreen Forest, Centennial, Pioneer, Hansen, Michael T. Simmons, Lincoln, and the Roosevelt YMCA After School Care. We’ve also brought rhythm and dance into Southworth Elementary in Yelm and Parkside Elementary in Tenino. We're in the Middle Schools, too: Reeves in Olympia and Chinook in Lacey.

We’re immensely proud of our participating schools who have performed all over Thurston County in venues such as the Procession of the Species, the Department of Ecology, school board meetings, school assemblies, the Farmers’ Market, and all-schools jams at Skateland. We look forward to adding more fun to schools and the community as the years roll on. Our need for music and dance won’t diminish; it’ll only increase.

From a teacher's point of view...
Norma Sassone has been a classroom teacher for 30 years. Over the past 11 years, she has been teaching English, history and world cultures at Chinook Middle School.
“Chinook is the dancing school!" This is the refrain I have heard for 5 years now since our school has been a participant in South Sound Kids Drum and Dance.
My foray into the world of Brazilian, Latin and African drumming and dance began with a desire and a willingness to try new things. I was one of the first to get on board with SSKDD, and I received a grant from the Twin Counties Credit Union for half a dozen kids’ congas and other percussion instruments from around the world. I incorporated the rhythms I learned into a class I titled "World Music, Art and Storytelling." The class evolved over the next four years into a participatory class where students learned Brazilian and Afro-Cuban rhythms from Scott Saunders and Geoff Johns and dance choreography from Amara Pagano and many others, including some wonderful interns from The Evergreen State College.
We learned Samba Batucada, Samba Reggae, Samba Hip-Hop and Cuban Conga. The kids and I were so hooked we even took a chance on learning some Hula.
We were four-time participants in The Procession of the Species. One year we were dancing and drumming clouds, lightning bolts and rainbows, another year, flames, then sparkly green and blue seaweed, and my particular favorite: dancing tree frogs (hip-hop frogs, of course!), red bulgy eyes and all. Thanks, SSKDD.