Ishangi Family Dancers

Since we loved the Ishangi family dancers from SO much we composed these paragraphs in writing groups on the Ishangi family. Read on to find out more about the amazing assembly we saw during Morse Heritage Week!

African Heritage

By Will, Willa, Jimmy, Lena

We saw a show with people from Ghana, Africa. They were the Ishangi family dancers. We are writing more to tell you about their heritage. The schools are very small and kids have to work a lot. Kids come in early to clean up the school because there are no custodians. Something interesting is the older kids carry their desks home on school vacations so they don’t get stolen. Most people in Ghana’s schools can’t afford food or lunch so people serve food for them. People in Ghana grow crops to get food. They also eat rice.

After school kids play lots of simple games. They have no electricity so they can’t play any electronic games. One of the games is the bottlecap game. You win by flicking your bottlecap onto your opponent’s bottlecap. They play volleyball and pretend there is a net. There is a season where it hardly rains so kids play games in the shade.

Another thing we learned from the Ishangi Family Dancers and their heritage is they sing and dance when they do chores. We learned a lot form the Ishangi family dancers.

Ishangi Dances

By Samantha, Leslie, Noel

We went to see the Ishangi family presentation. They showed us stories from Ghana by dancing. It was so exciting to see the laundry dance because a little girl had a giant laundry bag balanced on her head! I was wondering if it was heavy or not. During one song that same girl did flips and cartwheels. They sang Che Che Koolay and did a dance. Che Che Koolay means to thank God for food and for clothes and other things. They also taught us how to do the love and family dance. In the family dance they passed love energy on and a girl stood on top of a woman. In the food dance the girl acts like she’s passing out seeds and they grow. She danced with a plate. At the end, one of the Ishangi women gave us good advice how we should live our lives. The most important thing was to stay in school and listen to your mom and dad and teachers.

The Ishangi Family

By Payge and Arianna

The main idea is about the favorite things of the Ishangi family and their people. The people balanced laundry on their heads. They are very good at balancing! We enjoyed the loud drums. They had lots of rhythm. They sang a song called Che Che Koolay. It is a good song about being thankful. The mom was talking to spirits. When the mother didn’t have energy the girl would dance and shake the maraca and the mother would get her energy from that. The mom was in a puffy African costume with a mask on to talk to spirits. The mom did cartwheels and tagged the girl and she did them.
We enjoyed the Ishangi family dancers from Ghana, Africa.

Musical Instruments from the Ishangi Family

By Malik, Christian, Elina

The Ishangi family dancers have lots of instruments to play. The drums have a strong beat. The little kids use the drum sticks to bang on the drums. The adults play hard and fast using drum sticks or their hands. They use animal skins and wood to make their drums. The women carry gourd shakers to different places because it is light. A gourd shaker is a squash that is dried for 6 months. There is a net with beads and when you rub it against the surface it makes a sound. Another instrument is the bells on their feet. Each bell bracelet represents 1 person in their family.

The Ishangi family instruments help play different sounds and beats. Music is very important to the people of Ghana.