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Cancega Xicas Unidas
Hi Joyce, Please tell us about your women’s drumming group. It’s formation, meaning and intention. What does place, land, meaning and home mean to you at this time? And family?
I am fortunate to be part of a group called Cancega Xicas Unidas; United Women’s Drum. We are a Mixed- Nations Women’s folkloric drum group encompassing the universal language of music to raise consciousness, lift spirits and promote Community. We are moms, grandmothers, wives, sisters, educators, graphic artists, dancers, musicians, students, and theatre techies. We currently sing in English, Spanish, Nahuatl, Lakota and Urdu and are hoping to add a few more languages to our repertoire. I am the oldest, 56. The youngest is 8. We sing traditional folk songs as well as a few originals and a few “new traditional” songs. We’ve been singing together for three years. We were all currently or formerly organizers for Creative Women Unite, a grass roots organization that promotes and supports women of color in artistic endeavors. After a Creative Women Unite meeting at my house, a few women noticed my “big drum” and asked to hear it. My granddaughter Chloe, who is a techie for CWU, and I are singers with a traditional Sundance Drum Group, and knowing lots of songs
we happily obliged. We sang a few songs in Lakota and the other women sang a few songs in Nahuatl. There was definitely movement and energy happening and our drum group was born. We thought it would be nice to perform for the opening reception of CWU’s annual International Women’s Day event, we wanted to set a tone of feminine energy for the beautiful, talented, creative women who were participating. We sang folk songs, women’s songs of Indigenous peoples of different lands and the response was overwhelming. After the per- formance, we were approached by many in the audience, telling us how moved they’d been, how they’d never heard or seen women play a big drum like that, that they’d previously only seen or heard men.