Drum Camp Facilitators

			Jean Brereton		Carole Anne Burris		Shara Claire		Susan Crowe		Michelle Currie
	Geraldine Eisen		Lori Fithian		Zahra Haddad		Caroll Halford		Ubaka Hill		Barb Pitcher & Amy Oak
	Queen		Jess Steinberg		Vivienne Sun		Caru Thompson		Afia Walking Tree

Jean Brereton

Jean got her first drum 17 years ago. Living in rural Renfrew County, she had no one to teach her how to play. Jean says "I felt I didn't have much rhythm and was afraid of the drum. But I loved its sound and spirit, so I asked the drum to teach me." And as they say, the rest is herstory.

Jean has facilitated many drum circles and workshops throughout the Upper Ottawa Valley during the past eight years and passionately believes that we all have rhythm. She's drummed with children in area schools and seniors in residences.

She is a longtime astrologer and naturalist, and teaches an introductory course in drumming and percussion at Algonquin College in Pembroke, Ontario.

Carole Anne Burris

Carole Anne Burris has been playing music as long as she can remember. She was originally trained on piano and woodwinds, and spent the past 22 years composing and performing her own piano and electronic music compositions. Carole Anne started drumming about eleven years ago. She studied with Joseph Ashong, Ghanian master drummer, while he was in Toronto. Since 2000, she has been teaching other women to listen, to understand rhythm, and to drum. Her latest endeavour is a multi-disciplinary drumming group that performs original and traditional material and includes other instruments such as piano and guitar. She lives in Eastern Ontario between Toronto and Kingston.

Shara Claire

Shara Claire has been studying music for 25 years, and hand-drumming and percussion for ten. She has studied extensively with Chris Bertin of Moonrise Music in Duncan, B.C., and other teachers include Arthur Hull of Village Music Circles, Ubaka Hill, Famoudou Konate, Afia Walking Tree, and members of the late Babatunde Olatunji's ensemble. She has played with numerous performance groups on the West Coast. Having moved east in 2002 to train as an expressive arts therapist at ISIS-Canada, Shara now offers regular classes, workshops and private lessons in the Toronto area and is a regular percussionist for local dance and yoga classes. Her music exhibits influences from West African, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Middle Eastern and Congolese culture. As a teacher, Shara balances tradition and experimentation, and aspires to build rhythm-based community. Shara has taught rhythm to toddlers, elders, and everyone in between. She is a gently directive facilitator who believes in everyone's rhythmic capabilities. Shara's textured artistic background in dance, writing, improv theatre, piano and arts-based psychotherapy all influence her work with rhythm and people. She also has a ten-year background in yoga and meditation and is a certified massage practitioner.

Susan Crowe

Susan Crowe, drummer, singer, ceremonialist, water pourer, pipe carrier, healer and intuitive, has been moved by spirit to take her gifts "to the people".

23 years of study with native elders from both North and South America have honed her natural talents.

Personal work and experience have sensitized her to the needs of other women. She now celebrates life by drumming and singing songs of spirit, love and compassion. Through these she honors the life of each woman she meets by celebrating their connection to the goddess within.

Michelle Currie

Michelle Currie is the founder of Meditative Arts, which offers creativity and wellness workshops and courses. She is a graduate of the Masters of Education program at OISE/University of Toronto, where she focused on the use of meditation and the Arts for personal growth, social change, and environmental consciousness. Her background in meditation and stress management includes hatha yoga, pranayama, vipassana and mindfulness meditation. Her background in the Arts includes ten years of poetry writing and six years of instrumental music performance.

Inspired by the works of Thich Nhat Hahn and her passion for the Arts, Michelle began using Meditative Arts as a form of healing for herself and others. Intuition and improvisation are large components of her workshops. She brings a calming energy to each session.

Geraldine Eisen

Geraldine Eisen is a certified Reiki Master in the Usui Lineage, practicing since 1993; a registered Reflexologist and a graduate of the Ann Wigmore Living Food Institute; and a student of Native Spirituality through the teachings of the Twisted Hair Society. She will be blending her experiences with sounding, a Course in Miracles, and her Twisted Hair teachings with the natural healing energy of Reiki in order to bring Reiki to the Eastern Ontario Womyn's Drum Camp. Her goal is to empower others to heal themselves through their experience of Reiki.

Lori Fithian

Lori Fithian has been facilitating drum circles and leading workshops since 1998. She discovered the joy of drumming when she laid her hands on a beautiful hand-made ashiko at the Michigan women's music festival in 1989. She grew up in a musical family, banging on Tupperware as a toddler and playing French horn since age 11, so hand-drumming came naturally. After attending many drum workshops and classes, she dropped in on a drum circle led by Arthur Hull and her life changed. After a two-day workshop with Arthur in 1998, she went to Hawaii in 1999 for her first intensive Village Music Circles facilitator training and returned in 2003 to help train and mentor new facilitators. She also attended and mentored at two HealthRHYTHMS trainings, learning a specific protocol developed for wellness. Since then, she has been leading drum circles and sharing her love of rhythm and community with everyone from toddlers to elders. She has studied many different drum traditions — West African, Brazilian, Japanese, Cuban, Middle Eastern and more. Her drum circles, classes and workshops bring all these together into a multi-cultural message of peace, unity, diversity and fun. She calls it "Drummunity!".

Zahra Haddad

Middle Eastern drummer and doumbek player Zahra Haddad (aka Rosemary Corfield) of Ottawa has been playing Arabic-style percussion and working as a professional bellydancer and instructor since the mid-seventies. Zahra gained first-hand knowledge and practice while working with Egyptian, Lebanese, and Iraqi drummers and musicians over many years, and regularly upgrades her skills at workshops throughout Canada and the US with teachers such as Ibrahim Maalouf, MaryEllen Donald, Hossam Ramzy, Suleiman Warwar, and Raquy Danziger. A member of the women's world music ensemble, Mirage, music without borders, Zahra performed at the last Women's Voices Festival in 2005 and plays regularly at numerous other events in Ottawa, Kingston, and Cornwall. With her unique insights into both bellydance and drumming, Zahra has much to share with dancers and drummers of all traditions. Zahra currently teaches her "Fun with the Doumbek" Middle Eastern drumming classes and workshops for dancers, drummers, and children in Eastern Ontario.

Caroll Halford

I have been Sacred Circle Dancing for many years, both as a participant and as a facilitator. My love of these simple dances and the beautiful music keeps me connected to my spiritual being as I celebrate the sacred within myself and with each other.

We dance for community, for joy, for healing and for centeredness as we honour the sacred both in ourselves and in each other. Most dances are done in a circle (where we are all equal) but some are in a line or in a spiral.

Ubaka Hill

Ubaka is an authentic, energetic performer, composer, songwriter, recording artist, motivational speaker, conference weaver, teacher, and facilitator of hand drumming workshops for more than 25 years throughout the United States. Her soul-vision and intention is to facilitate and inspire personal transformation, empowerment, healing and joy with music that moves you.

Ubaka's music is intentional and indefinable, inspired by her appreciation of celtic, jazz, latin, african, shamanic, folkloric, aboriginal and contemporary music, including the art of creative improvisation.

Barb Pitcher & Amy Oak

Barb has been playing drums for over 30 years, from high school marching band to dance bands. A member of the Percussion Arts Society, she has been studying frame drums extensively for several years with master drummers such as Layne Redmond and Glen Velez.

Amy Oak has been creating ritual in the context of women's spirituality. She has studied frame drums intensively with Layne Redmond since 1997 and focuses on using drumming to deepen ritual and trance.

Barb and Amy conduct workshops and teach frame drumming at Cybele's, their retreat in Twin Lake, Michigan.

Queen

Queen is a visionary and holds sacred ancestral traditions while channeling Nu and tangible ways to apply these birth rites to our daily lives. She is creatress of ancestor's daughters and ongoing young women's rite of passage community empowerment movement, since 1999, located in Long Beach, California. This community movement encourages awareness of our oneness with all that is, self-empowerment and an inner knowing that we are infinite possibilities.

Queen teaches Nu Traditional Afrikan Dance Movement. She is visionary to a combination of ancient ancestral movements and modern concepts that fill each movement with intentions of physical, emotional balance and well being whereby self-empowerment via self expression unfolds harmony and the desired state of being.

Jess Steinberg

Jess Steinberg, an educator for ten years, specializes in drumming and rhythm, outdoor education, group development and experiential workshops. She is also a founding member of WombBoom! a hot and exciting group of seven women drummers who bring audiences to their feet with traditional world music and original improvised compositions. Jess enjoys sharing her experience and passion for the didgeridoo with others…so come on out and discover these mystical sounds for yourself!

Vivienne Sun

Vivienne is an expert practitioner of Quantum Healing Massage and Reflexology.

Quantum Healing Massage is the "Cadillac of Massage"…the bliss-inducing result of over 20 years of work with the Trager Approach, Quantum Touch energy work, and many other healing modalities. It is profoundly relaxing and healing, invoking a "back to the womb" level of comfort. Tension and stiffness are eased away, utilizing your own built-in relaxation response.

Reflexology is deep massage of pressure points on your feet, which relaxes and heals corresponding areas in the whole body.

Vivienne's work is well known in London, and she has had a private practice in both Vancouver and Tofino.

Caru Thompson

Caru Thompson, Shekere Master, teaches and instructs Shekere/Bell/Performance workshops in Ontario, Quebec, the USA, and abroad (including England, Trinidad, and Barbados). She is a member of ASE (Ah-Shay) and Women Of The Calabash, and performs solo and with other internationally known musicians/entertainers. Recording credits include ASE, Ubaka Hill, and Motown artists. Film credits include academy award winning Black Is…Black Ain't, Marlon Riggs, Prod/Dir., A Litany For Survival: The Life & Work of Audre Lorde.

A percussionist with a versatile ear, Caru has co-composed for Liturgical Dance at the NY Theological Seminary and established and directed a folkoric performance group of Senior Women (The Shekerettes).

Known as Shekere Queen of the Top Hand, Caru writes and performs poetry and storytelling and is the Keeper of Traditions through the Word. Caru sees Music as the universal language and uses it as a healing and empowerment tool. She facilitates workshops for Pre-school through Senior adults. Caru is writing "The Gourd Stories".

As a social worker, her clients are people in Harlem, New York with HIV and AIDS, who have been chronically homeless.

Afia Walking Tree

Afia Walking Tree, M.Ed, Amazon Queen of the Drum Lineage, Ajuba, is a world-class drum activist, educator, and shamwomyn. Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, she currently serves as visionary, director, and spiritual leader for her brainchild, Spirit Drumz, and its drum school, The Underground Drum Sanctuary in Oakland, California. Walking Tree, masterful facilitator and teacher, builds bridges across multi-ethnic intergenerational communities to create sustaining change by awakening and inspiring those she touches.

Afia Walking Tree's lovedrumsongs are evolutionary teachings which address present day issues of social justice, freedom, passion, healing and self-love.

"Walking Tree's charisma, humor, open-hearted love of the drum and her inclusive style of teaching transforms you from the moment you are in her midst" (drum student). Prepare to be lifted by this vibrant, joy-freeing amazon.

Walking Tree's first CD, Soul Affirmationz, is available online at www.spiritdrumz.org and will be available at camp.