One world is enough for all of us

In an effort to deal with globalisation, multicultural issues, discrimination and prejudice, Hit the Beat was formed as a neutral ground on which students from different economic backgrounds meet to share in the delights of dance and music amongst others, as a way of connecting them without using circumstances as an excuse for division.
The Hit the Beat project began in 1998 as an inspired student idea. Simone de Picciotto who is the project head at the Waldorf School was working at Waldorf School for disadvantaged children in Baden-Wuerttemberg, in Germany at the time.
One of Simone’s pupils chose to do drumming for his final year project at the school. During the course of their teacher-student relationship, Simone started of working on the drumming training with him, but soon after Simone began to attend drumming workshops as well. Soon the first drums were bought and the first drumming group was founded. Since then Simone has been regularly drumming and singing at schools with children.
Seven years later, Simone started teaching at the Waldorf School in Windhoek, and the project came with her. In Windhoek, Simone worked in the high school for a further eight years, teaching music and other subjects. In the summer of 2012, she returned to Germany where she continued with Hit the Beat in the form of workshops at a number of schools, academies and other projects, working with youth from varying backgrounds.
One of the main aims of Hit the Beat is to unite young people worldwide. In September 2016, the Namibian Hit the Beat project will travel to Germany with Simone and will perform with German learners and refugees form a number of countries.
“Hit the Beat – In Rhythm we meet” is an extraordinary performing project, presented by 80 learners from the Waldorf School of Windhoek for the past three years, with musicians, artists and teachers from Germany and Namibia incorporating dance, drums, choir, theatre, garbage music and film making as part of the project. The development of the performance project included three weeks of choir rehearsal for high school learners from grades 10 to 12, with an additional choice of three week workshops for each learner, which includes dance, drumming, solo singing, film making, visual arts or improvisational theatre.
The team behind the learners comprise of Simone de Picciotto as project leader, head of the choir production, the drumming workshop and the music workshop, Carmen Nothando-Voigt head dance and choreography, Mia Rossler, theatre, poetry and improvisation production, Tapuwanashe Munya with drumming, Felix Spitta with hip-hop and film making productions, Markus Sprengler as the band singer and vocal coach, Faizel Browne with dance, Retha Landsberg with Mexican dance, Gerrit von Schouwenburg with art development with Gunther Geiger, Adam Brandon-Kirby and Conrad Hegarty as band members.
The production is said to bring students from different backgrounds together to learn from one another and to create a unified world in which all people from different backgrounds are able to commune and share their experiences and talent through various arts.
“Music connects. Non-verbal communication helps to bring people together. When working with music, everyone is equal; there are no differentiating or discriminating factors. The learners acquire a greater awareness of their bodies through daily dancing and movement training. Stability and flexibility, as well as coordination are improved through special exercise that also helps develop stage presence” a statement by the project heads explained.
In the spirit of bringing young people from different backgrounds together to learn and share, Hit the Beat notes that refugees in Europe have initiated a huge discussion on how to deal with the multicultural issues in many of those countries.
In Namibia with its history of apartheid and oppressive regimes, one of the possible ways of solving these tensions is through the non-verbal communication of music, art and dance. Hit the Beat 2016 aims for all cultures to meet in music, dance, percussion and art, while trying to promote cultural identity in connection with cultural diversity.
In its efforts to reach young Namibians from different economic and social backgrounds, the project has seen children from disenfranchised areas like Katutura also taking part in the project. One of the organisers of the event told a telling tale of how Waldorf makes sure that the aim of the project is met through exposing learners at the school to students from different backgrounds. The measure to which students embraced their diversity could be seen at the showing of the production last week Friday and Saturday at the Warehouse Theatre in Windhoek. Filled to the brim the production offered a taste of all things international and local, with the musical selection ranging from melodies to rap ballets performed by the Waldorf students and some staff members.
There was also poetry on the menu, dished out by Charles Bennafield and Mia Rossler, with all the students singing ‘one world is enough for all of us’’ at the end of the first part of the program.
The show continued with electrifying showings of garbage music by Simone de Picciotto and Mortiz Schuster and ended with the Choir singing renditions of Avule Kile Zulu Gospel, Dubula a Xhosa folksong, and Mariam Makeba’s Pata Pata as a way to round off the show.
Next Year’s show promises even more delights. Keep an ear out.
Keith Vries