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Our aim is always to entertain — Efeee Noko
As the dancers twirled, jumped, stomped and made elegant dashes across the stage, the drummers buoyed them up with some fast-paced rhythms which helped create an appropriate mood for the last leg of the contest.
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The Naa Ga-Dangme beauty pageant gave an opportunity to young, intelligent, eloquent and beautiful Ga-Dangme ladies between the ages of 18 and 28 to showcase the culture and traditions of the various Ga-Dangme communities.
Efeee Noko is based at Nungua in Accra.
The group’s leader, Richmond Otu Laryea, believed they were selected to perform at the finale because of their versatility and ability to deliver on big occasions.
“We don’t go on stage to just drum and dance. Our aim is always to entertain. It is not our style to precisely reproduce dances and drum patterns of any particular ethnic area,” said Laryea. “We blend rhythms and movements from different places to spice up our act.”
Laryea understands what it takes to spice things up musically.
He is also the regular percussionist for the Bessa Band where he handles a variety of styles such as Highlife, Jazz, Afrobeat, Reggae and Afro-rock.
“Playing music for an audience is all about entertainment. The more exposed you are to different frontiers, the better prepared you are to figure out what’s best to entertain the audience on hand,” says Laryea.
So as the Efeee Noko Cultural Troupe made the stage vibrate with sound and motion at the Naa Ga-Dangme contest, they knew who the core audience were and chose appropriate repertoire to make them happy.
The Efeee Noko leader said he was grateful to organisers of the pageant for effectively showcasing traditional bands from Greater Accra throughout the competition which was won by Naa Borley from Nungua.
As a way of helping to consolidate the creativity and influence of traditional bands in Greater Accra, Efeee Noko has already set plans in motion to host a festival of some of the prominent groups in the region at Nungua by March next year.
“The traditional bands are more flexible these days. They are better known away from our shores than the contemporary popular music bands. We need to keep honing our abilities to keep entertaining the world,” Laryea stated.