ABOUT

DANCING DRUM PUBLICATIONS

Dancing Drum aims to set a national standard for innovative, cross-curricular arts education programming. Our approach combines music education with standards-based learning extensions in a variety of subjects including visual art, dance, social studies, history, reading, language, geography, and character education. We utilize the power of music to inspire a spirit of learning that crosses over to the entire school day. All of our curriculum publications are based on these ideals and adhere to national standards for education.

Dancing Drum's 2008 curriculum publication, "Drumming Up Character: A Hip-Hop Music Approach to Character Education", is being implemented in over 500 schools in the US and Canada. The California Department of Education has awarded this program approval for social content compliance. This means that the Drumming Up Character book, CD and DVD adhere to educational standards for portraying democratic values, cultural pluralism, and the diversity of our population. Drumming Up Character (DUC) was originally developed for a summer program that Dancing Drum conducted for at-risk youth through the United Way of Santa Barbara County. In addition to the DUC Teacher's Guide, we also offer a DUC Student Workbook.

In 2009, we published our second book, "Community Drum Ensemble: Volume 1" for middle school, junior high, high school, and adults. This performance-based ensemble program provides a fun, positive, and inclusive outlet for building a "drum team" during school, after school, or at other venues such as community centers, places of worship, drum shops, businesses, etc...Community Drum Ensemble (CDE) was developed during many years of leading performance-based drumming groups in Southern and Central California.

In 2010, we released our newest publication, "Drumming Up World Music: West Africa", which features 10 polyrhythmic arrangements for drums and xylophones, as well as an integrated arts and reading curriculum designed to inspire a spirit of adventure in students. DUWM-WA includes a Learning Levels system, which makes it easy for music teachers to tailor lessons for the ability of every class, grades K-8. This program covers music from 5 West African countries: Mali, Niger, Guinea, Senegal, and Burkina Faso.

Dancing Drum offers Professional Development trainings for each of these curricula to help school districts get drumming programs up and running.

Dancing Drum publications are available for purchase through the following outlets:

In the US:

Dancing Drum

In Europe:

Musique Egele (France)