Today's Group 1 class finished off Zaouli 6. We spent quite a bit of time at the end of the class having fun, playing Zaouli and using breaks 5 and 6.

Group 2 is struggling a bit with Zaouli 7 and isn't through learning the break yet. About a third of it still remains to learn.

The pyramid class continued to work on Mamady's insane break (and actually finished it--sound clip below). During the pyramid class, Mamady passed on a lot of interesting info. First up, I got the origin of this break wrong: Mamady didn't do this in his Ivory Coast days in the Eighties, but earlier, in Guinea in 1977, which is when he composed the entire pyramid.

Mamady related quite a bit of the history of the ballets. Basically, the early ballets were modelled on the European ballets, where the orchestra was hidden in an orchestra pit, so it wouldn't distract the audience from the dance. With the African ballets, they did the same, only the musicians were hidden in the side stage. (If you watch early Ballet...

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