This three-week dance training program gives you the opportunity to learn West African dance, gyil music (a Ghanaian xylophone), drumming, singing, batik and tie-dye making, kente weaving, beads making, and basket weaving. You will also participate in xylophone and drum making workshops, cooking, volunteering teaching at nearby schools (optional), and working with women groups, such as market women, church groups and community-based network groups.
The program is led by our site directors Michael and Joyce Woma, who are renowned dancers and musicians running a family-owned dance and music center in Accra. The program includes excursions to other parts of Ghana, including the ancient city of Kumasi, the Kintampo waterfalls, the slave castles in Cape Coast, tropical beaches, the longest rain forest canopy walk in the world at Kakum National Park, and the exciting city of Accra, where you will see West Africa’s largest arts and craft market (the Art Center), the National Museum, the University of Ghana and a performance at the National Theatre.
“I was very satisfied with my travel experience. I found my home in Ghana and I look forward to more traveling experiences there. I enjoyed the activities. I enjoyed the dance classes as well as the singing classes. I fully enjoyed my time in Ghana.”
The Alliance Française d’Accra is a cultural center aimed at preserving and educating the public on French language and Franco-Ghanaian culture. The center offers dance performances as well as art exhibits. The center also offers French courses from beginner to specialized advanced levels. The alliance organizes 5 festivals a year: the Francophonie Festival, Live in Accra Jazz Festival, Gastronomy Festival, Future Fest Electronic Music Festival, and the Accra Hip Hop Week.
The National Theatre of Ghana is a performing arts hub in Accra. The theatre hosts performances and workshops for artists in the area.
Dance Alive International is an organization that offers private and group dance lessons and also hosts social dance nights. Their dance styles include kizomba and salsa as well as aerobic and fitness focused classes.
Our Ghana programs are based at the Dagara Music Center (DMC) in the village of Medie just outside the capital city of Accra. The family of our Site Director – Bernard Woma – will greet you warmly and welcome you as a member of the family during your stay. You will be provided all meals during your program, and the center has its own generator and water tank to protect against power and plumbing outages. Medie is an incredibly diverse area, and the center is just down the street from a Pentecostal church, a Krishna temple, a Catholic church and a bar! Public transportation will get you from the center to downtown Accra where you can explore a wide variety of markets and performance venues.
Ghana is a vibrant country full of life, and home to a wide array of cultural groups with a range of ethnic diversity and dance traditions. Ghana’s abundance of gold helped give this area of Africa its name: the Gold Coast. It is a country of plateaus and plains covered by rain forests in the west and Lake Volta in the east—one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. The capital city Accra, home to over 3 million people, is a bustling and increasingly modern metropolis with many of the amenities you would expect in your own place of residence. The dance and music center is located on the outskirts of the city in a more residential area called Medie with easy access to the city center.
You will stay in dormitory-style accommodations in the dance and music center where you may share a room with several other participants depending on the number enrolled during your session. The dorm is located in the center, near the Director’s home, and most space is shared communally by the family and participants. Meals are shared in an indoor dining room or outside at picnic tables. There is electricity provided by a generator owned by the center to protect against power failures, and running water is supplied by a privately owned borewell. There are modern showers and toilets, and one shower with hot water available.
During excursions to other parts of Ghana, you will stay in hotels or guest houses, included in the cost of the program.
All meals are included in the price of this program, but you will be responsible for purchasing your own bottled drinking water.
Depending on the size of your session’s group, your room may be shared with other international musicians or dancers of the same sex. During the summer we usually have a handful of participants joining a larger group of a dozen or more.
Sitting on the front porch of the Woma family home in the middle of the dance center, you hear the sounds of children laughing and playing. A warm breeze brings the smells of fires cooking the evening meal, and whips some dust into the air. Crossing the Kakum Canopy Walk, you clutch the rope bridge tightly as you try not to look down at the rainforest floor 130 feet below, while monkeys and birds hop around curiously observing you. Merchants in the Accra Art Center loudly call you into their stalls as the vibrant colors beckon you to come closer…
The sounds, sights, and smells of Ghana are difficult to forget, and the hospitality you experience from your hosts will live in your memory forever. Your days will be spent in morning and afternoon training sessions with lunch in the middle, and your evenings will be filled with laughter and storytelling, as you watch (and sometimes participate in!) the cooking of the meal for the center’s guests. Dance is only the beginning of what you will learn during your time in Ghana, as you will have a chance to try your hand at a wide variety of handicrafts and other cultural art-forms. A multi-day trip around Ghana will leave you exhausted, but also somehow full of energy. By the time your last day rolls around, you will not want to leave, but we hope you bring the lessons you learn and the dance vocabulary you gain back to your community at home, and share a little piece of Ghana with your friends and family.
You will book your flight to arrive at Kotoka International Airport (ACC) in Accra. A PAA representative will wait for you in the arrivals areas with a sign that has our logo on it. You will be driven to the dance center, and will spend the first day unpacking, settling in, and getting to know the family and workers at the center as well as other program participants. The following day will include an orientation to Accra, day to day life in Medie where the center is located, health and safety, and other details relating to your specific program.
For your remaining time at the center, you will join morning and afternoon training session every day, lasting three hours each. You will also spend several days traveling to important cultural sites in Ghana with the group, led by our site director Bernard Woma.
The dance center where you will be training was founded over 10 years ago by Bernard Woma, one of the most famous players of the Dagara gyil, a xylophone native to the northwest region of Ghana. You will receive instruction directly from this master himself (who is also an accomplished dancer), in addition to more than a dozen highly trained experienced dancers from all over Ghana. Guest artists will visit the center to offer courses in kente weaving, batik, tye-dying, drum making, blacksmithing, and other cultural arts of Ghana. The center is also near several historical castles such as the Cape Coast Castle, as well as a number of beautiful Atlantic beaches, which you will visit with the group during your three weeks.
Reynolds graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008 with a degree in Theater and African and African American Studies. For an honors thesis Reynolds filmed, edited, and produced a full-length documentary in Kenya with Haba na Haba, a group using performance for education and social change in the slums of Nairobi. This project earned him the Forum on Education Abroad Undergraduate Research Award. A year later, Reynolds organized a trip to bring Haba na Haba to the United States for a tour of St. Louis and Washington University. Immediately after graduation, Reynolds worked in Rwanda as a filmmaker for Millennium Congregations, an interfaith organization connecting communities of faith in the United States with development projects in Rwanda’s Bugesera District. Reynolds then served two years with Teach for America, teaching in the South Bronx and receiving a Masters Degree in Education from Hunter College. He completed a second graduate degree in African Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington, and his Masters thesis focused on the impact of donors on the creative process of Theatre for Development (TfD) groups in Kenya.
Reynolds has traveled extensively in Africa, spending time in Ghana, Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He also studied acting, voice, and movement at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Reynolds is a two-time Rhodes Scholarship finalist, the inaugural recipient of the Dred and Harriet Scott Award for the Advancement of Human Rights, and the winner of two research fellowships. He was also a Dialogue Fellow for the Xenia Institute, has twice served as the co-director for the Roosevelt Institution’s International Diplomacy Center (Washington University branch), and was president of the Graduate Students of African Studies (GSAS) at Indiana University.
Most recently, Reynolds was named a winner of the 40 under Forty award honoring business leaders in Western Massachusetts.
Reynolds lives in Greenfield, MA with his wife Julia who is a professional costume designer and his daughters, Lily and Georgia. In his free time Reynolds likes to play his guitar, go hiking, act in local productions, hit the karaoke bars, sing with his dog Captain (the best doggy singer in the universe), and play various yard games such as KanJam, cornhole, “cups”, and Kubb.
Michael supports all participants on our Ghana programs, acting as the main point of contact throughout their stay in the country, along with the Co-Site Director, Joyce. He coordinates airport pickup, arranges housing, leads cultural excursions, oversees a talented team of instructors (and teaches himself on some programs), and manages the 24-hour onsite emergency phone.
Michael Woma graduated from Amasaman Senior High School in 2013 where he studied visual and performing arts.
Because of his ability to interact well with people from diverse backgrounds and his ability to be highly adaptable to different working conditions, he was employed by his uncle, Bernard Woma, to work for him at the Dagara Music and Art Center as the Operation and Logistics Manager in 2014. He has since served as a liaison between the DMC director and visiting participants for an average of 10 yearly study abroad programs hosted by the DMC. Since Bernard’s passing, Michael has stepped into the role of interim Site Director where he continues to manage and supervise all of the DMC’s study abroad programs.
Michael is also passionate about being with people who are concerned and interested in developing their communities. In 2015 he became a member of the UK charity organization, Move The World. Alongside his work for the DMC, he has helped organize, execute, and supervise community development programs on the ground in Medie, Ghana for Move the World. He founded Move The World Quiz, a monthly program in local schools that encourages academic achievement through fun, creative quiz games.
Michael looks forward to working with all future PAA participants at the DMC!
Joyce supports all participants on our Ghana programs, acting as the main point of contact throughout their stay in the country, along with the Co-Site Director, Michael. She coordinates airport pickup, arranges housing, leads cultural excursions, oversees a talented team of instructors (and teaches herself on some programs), and manages the 24-hour onsite emergency phone.
Joyce Woma was born on 25th October 1989. She joined the renowned Saakumu Dance Troupe in 2011. After joining Saakumu, within a few years Joyce rose to be one of the lead dancers. During that time Joyce learned and mastered dances from across Ghana. In 2014 Joyce traveled to the U.S. for three years, where she taught and performed at University. Today, Joyce is currently co-leading Saakumu while filling her role as lead dance teacher at DMC, where she was trained by founder Bernard Woma at the age of 11. These two organizations are leading cultural music teaching and performance, and Joyce is at the forefront of both.
I learned so much, not only art, music and dance, but important life lessons. Everyone was so giving and accommodating. The teachers were really thorough with dancing instructions…I learned how to make Adinkra prints, batik, calabash bowl and jewelry art, and basket weaving. I had the most amazing and personal experience!
Allison Wooley“I was very satisfied with my travel experience. I found my home in Ghana and I look forward to more traveling experiences there. I enjoyed the activities. I enjoyed the dance classes as well as the singing classes. I fully enjoyed my time in Ghana.”
“I could not be happier with my experience in Ghana. It wasn’t always easy and definitely required me to be open to new things and personal growth, but I learned so much and met amazing people. I would highly recommend this program to anyone.”
Gabby LaskeThe information on this page provides details for a sample group program. Note that every group is different, and we will work with you to cater the experience to your group. To connect with us and begin organizing a program for your group, please follow the “Get Started’ button below and submit an initial questionnaire. We will then contact you to set up a discovery call where we can go into more detail about your group’s needs and what we can offer.
This three-week dance training program gives you the opportunity to learn West African dance, gyil music (a Ghanaian xylophone), drumming, singing, batik and tie-dye making, kente weaving, beads making, and basket weaving. You will also participate in xylophone and drum…
This three-week dance training program gives you the opportunity to learn West African dance, gyil music (a Ghanaian xylophone), drumming, singing, batik and tie-dye making, kente weaving, beads making, and basket weaving. You will also participate in xylophone and drum…
This three-week dance training program gives you the opportunity to learn West African dance, gyil music (a Ghanaian xylophone), drumming, singing, batik and tie-dye making, kente weaving, beads making, and basket weaving. You will also participate in xylophone and drum…
This three-week dance training program gives you the opportunity to learn West African dance, gyil music (a Ghanaian xylophone), drumming, singing, batik and tie-dye making, kente weaving, beads making, and basket weaving. You will also participate in xylophone and drum…
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