In the first week of October 2007 we travelled with Penny Avery from Jamaica/UK, Eugenia Ledesma from Argentina, Claudio Kron do Brazil and Laercio dos Angos Borges from Brazil. We ran workshops and had jam sessions to create a Doris flavour at the event, culminating in our usual wonderful, celebratory finale involving all the workshop participants.

It went so well they have invited us back in 2008. This year we took Ansoumana `Vieux` Bakayoko, Nigel May, Penny Avery and the Seckou Keita Quintet. Please check out their website  www.cheoyong.or.kr

We all had a fantastic time and will be posting photos on the site soon. Watch this space! 

Doris went to Korea!

Last year Doris was invited to be part of the oldest cultural festival in South Korea, the Cheoyong Culture Festival  in Ulsan, which was being re-launched as a world music festival. This invitation had grown out of our relationship with Min Kim, who we met through Dulsori, the amazing Korean drummers who came to teach at Doris in 2006.

After much intense communication and work between Siobhan and the Korean organisers the plan was to set off in October with Chartwell Dutiro, Claudio Kron do Brazil, Penny Avery, Eugenia Ledesma, Laercio dos Angos Borges and Deasy Bamford to stretch our horizons and take a slice of Doris to Asia.  Having always nursed a secret desire to take Doris on the road this was a great opportunity to test the possibilities. 

After 17hrs flying time, missed planes, hauling samba drums and djembes between airports and having to leave Chartwell behind in the UK because of visa problems, we arrived in the third biggest city in S. Korea, an industrial city built on a  wide river and jam packed with skyscrapers! We had classy hotel treatment in downtown Ulsan, getting to grips with the diet of strange and sometimes wonderful food, crazy road crossings, lovely friendly people, sunshine and a festival to be part of. We were excited and up for it! 

We held 8 workshops a day between us. By teaching West African dance and Hip Hop to a group of pretty professional standard students, Capoeira and Brazilian percussion and West African drumming we managed to extend the Doris Vibe across the outdoor areas of the festival. Our presence was not missed by the rest of the city either, as we seemed to be the flavour of the festival and thus were on TV a lot! 

Each day dawned gloriously sunny as we traipsed from our posh hotel through the city to the festival site in and around the Ulsan Culture Centre. The rest of the festival was all groups and bands from Cuba, Canada, Czech Republic, Norway, Macedonia and lots of groups of musicians and dancers from S. Korea. which has a rich cultural tradition. Despite being such a modern society the traditional is still thoroughly entwined in the present. On the Saturday night there was one of the biggest musical processions to be seen anywhere outside of Carnival: to the naked eye ‘ millions' of drummers and dancers, men and women and children were filling the streets for miles. 

We had a fantastic time, met some lovely people, opened our eyes to the reality of overseas collaborations and the difficulties of cross and miscommunication, had amazing feedback from our students, participants and audiences. Small children fell in love with us, old soldiers fell in love with us, women and families fell in love with us and we felt privileged to be there, sharing our special brand of inclusive welcoming learning, heartfelt delight in sharing  and top quality  teaching. The week flashed by and we all wished we had longer to stay and actually get to know the place a little better, but we felt we had done justice to the time we were there. Once Claudio had discovered the free sauna in the hotel we managed to keep going full on for the four days of the festival, pack in some gigs, meet lots of international musicians and not even miss the plane back!

It was a great experience and we hope that this year we can go again and deepen the relationships, take more teachers, meet new people and see just a little more of the fascinating country that makes Britain look like a quiet backwater in civilization.