Mr. Matt and Mr. Mike Please Come to the Field
/Day 2 of Kobine: Dorwana left late in the night to travel to a funeral south of Lawra. Mike and I met with Samuel Baaru at 7am. The Baaru family are well known gyil builders in Lawra, and good friends of Dorwana. Samuel was a part of the festival planning committee and helped us around Lawra. The fact that Mike and I were played gyil came up in a conversation and Dorwana pushed to have us to play at the festival. So after a quick early morning "audition" we were on the schedule. After our meeting we headed back to the guesthouse for breakfast and to gather our equipment for the rest of the day.
The festival started around 10am. Again all ensembles played at once and then a few more speeches were given. It was about an hour and half before we were called to the festival ground. Mike, myself and Samuel performed a small bewaa arrangement and got a "kudos" from the MC, great success in my opinion!
After our performance there was a few more speeches and then the competition began. Groups competed in three different sections. The first section was for dalri groups which was followed by bewaa ensembles. The ensembles would have 10 minutes to perform, with three ensembles usually performing at once. The last section of the competition was vocal ensembles. The vocal ensembles are comprised of one lead vocalist, and a group which responds to the leader. Unlike the instrumental ensembles, the vocal ensembles perform one by one.
There was a handful of judges on the field throughout the competition, convening in the late afternoon to discuss scores and to determine winners. Winners were announced in the early evening, and then it was back to the guest house. After dropping off our equipment and changing we went out for a beer, then explored the festival grounds. By early evening the grounds had become a large speaker box dance party. We were able to check out some gyil that was being played away from the dance party. After all of this it was dinner time which was traditional dagara jojo. After dinner I went out to buy some water then it was off to bed!