The hands beating on the skin of the drum propel Yvette Harley on a journey that electrifies her body into dance.
Click here to watch the
video interview with Harley
Adorned in bright fabrics and a headdress, Harley performs for a crowd on Flagler Avenue. While the people clap and cheer her on, the rhythms of the percussion send her to a place far from that lit up street in New Smyrna Beach -- to the land of her African ancestors.
"The beats and the drums--they just connect with your spirit," she said. "It just takes you to so many places. It's like you take a spiritual trip while you're dancing." Harley, 45, has never been to Africa, and yet in her own way, she's already reached and absorbed the continent's culture. Africa is in her living room art and décor. It's also in her business plan to open an ethnic dance studio and store. "It's about me, my heritage," she said.
Children in Southeast Volusia, where she teaches, often call her "the Africa lady" but the mother of five, with long, thin dreadlocks, grew up in Harlem, New York, where there are African dance classes on nearly every street corner, she said.
To prevent Harley from getting caught up in the violence and drugs in Harlem, her mother kept her busy six days a week in a variety of classes, such as ballet, jazz, tap, folk dancing and even some piano.
"(My mom) didn't want me to sit on the stoop every day," Harley recalled. "She let me rest on Sunday."
Harley was involved in theater between age 7 and 14, where her passion for African dance was born. She had a part in a play as an actress and the African dancer got stage fright.
"I knew everybody's part, so I immediately jumped in and took her place," she said, "and I loved it ever since.'
She attended the Harlem Children's Theater Co. and the Harlem School of the Arts, where she trained in ethnic dance. Later, she became a top dancer in the Talent Unlimited program with Julia Richmond High School and went on to dance under Gene Anthony Ray, who performed in the television show "Fame."
But while ethnic dance was commonplace in New York, Harley and her children and grandchildren found a completely different situation when they moved to Florida in 1997 to take care of Harley's grandfather. The Edgewater residents were homesick for the excitement from the northeast dance companies that they still belong to, such as LaRocque Bey School of Dance and Bokandeye African-American Dance Theater.
Her eldest daughter, Chanel Barrow, 21, said she always considered herself a dancer, but tried drumming once they moved to Florida and found that she remembered the beats from her days in New York. "I really didn't know I could drum."
Chanel Barrow, 21, Vincent Hendricks, 26 and their mother, Yvette Harley, performed African dance and drumming during the Light Up Flagler on Dec. 5 on Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach.
Soon they realized they could bring the culture here and started The Heritage Drummers and Dancers group. Harley, her children and students perform at festivals, parades and Black History Month events throughout the region. She has also taught at summer camps for the Atlantic Center for the Arts and after-school care at the Babe James Center in New Smyrna Beach.
Liz Yancey, director of Parks and Recreation Department in New Smyrna Beach, said Harley provided something different for the community when she taught children in the after school care program about 10 years ago.
"It was a lost art," she said. "No one was doing that kind of thing."
Until she launches her new dance studio in a few weeks, Harley teaches in the daycare room of a local church. Felicia Darrisaw recently started dancing under Harley, but her three daughters have been taking class from her for six years.
They're getting good exercise, Darrisaw said, but they're also learning about African culture, such as folk songs and the "lapa," a traditional African wrap worn by women.
"We're called African Americans, but of course, we've never been to Africa," Darrisaw said, "so we're getting a lesson in culture and some true terminology from our heritage."
(Click here to watch the video interview with Harley)
For more information about The Heritage Dancers and Drummers group or dance and drumming classes, contact Yvette Harley and Chanel Barrow at culturallyyours212@yahoo.com. Their studio and ethnic store will be opening soon in Edgewater at 2102 S. Ridgewood Ave., unit 20.
Add your own flavor to free, community drum circles. Bring your own instruments or borrow some at the event.
- Drumming for Peace meets at the Edgewater Public Library, 103 Indian River Blvd, at 7 p.m. on the first Friday of every month. Participants may take their own instruments or borrow one. For more information, call Rhonda Donahoo, 386-423-0083.
- Recreational Music Making meets in the parking lot of A Lotta Scents, 511 Canal Street in New Smyrna Beach at 7:30 p.m. on the second Friday of every month. The group also meets in The Yoga Center, 820 S. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Beach at 7 p.m. in the second Saturday of the month. Visit www.drum4wellness.org for more information and sessions throughout the area.
- Seabreeze Coffee Connection, 315 Seabreeze Blvd. in Daytona Beach, has drumming every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Call (386) 238-5683 or visit http://www.meetup.com/CoffeeShopTV.