Navaro Franco

_Navaro Franco has devoted her life to studying tribal music, many forms of dance, and Earth based wisdom traditions. Beginning in 1982, she apprenticed with renowned teachers in North America and Africa.  As a performer and teacher, Navaro has presented in community, corporate, and educational settings for 22 years. She has played in traditional Zimbabwean and West African ensembles, as well as co-creating original music from those foundations with such groups as Pepe Danza's Drum Prayers, The Wave Collective and DivaDrum.  Navaro plays percussion and is a back-up singer with Kurai Mubaiwa and Curtis Andrews in Zimbabwean Music Group, The Zhambai Trio.  She works in the Corporate world with South Africa's Munkie Ncapayi and his international company, The Drum Cafe.  Navaro also  collaborates with individuals such as Australian Didjeridu master Shine Edgar.  Her synthesis of traditional and modern forms creates community and beauty. 

A lifetime practice of yoga and dance also deeply inform Navaro's musical work, giving her a special gift of embodied rhythm.  Navaro plays the African Djembe, Bass Drum Jun Jun, Gourd Shaker Shekere, and the complex 22 key Southern African Thumb Piano, the Mbira.  She has studied Body Mind Centering, Alexander Technique, Contact, Modern, Improv, 5 Rhythms, and African Dance in Vancouver and Montreal with leading edge teachers.  Navaro also performs solo Earth Prayers dances, a unique form that arose from the synthesis of her many movement and rhythm studies.  Navaro facilitates group Earth Prayers Ecstatic Dance Journeys, based on ancient wisdom translated into modern form. 
  
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Rhythm Is......

At the roots of every culture, music is or was strongly rhythmic, acting as a glue and a sanctuary for community.  Music weaves culture.  Rhythm connects all of creation.  Traditional culture the world over was crushed by colonization not so long ago. Even for people of European descent, this is true, in more ancient history.  Drumming today is a grassroots movement recovering, honoring, and re-creating many beautiful elements of Earth connected life. Rhythm whispers to us of eternal ebb and flow....the cyclical nature of life.  Stars, planets, molecules and atoms move in great rhythmic cycles and microcosmic orbits. Pulses of life moves through space and through us. Rhythm is a beautiful reflection of Universal order.  Being in Rhythm, we 'remember' our roots in our bodies.  We remember what it is to be fully human - something akin to being divine.  We awaken ancient memory of the wholeness and connectedness of ourselves and all of Creation.

To "re-member" is to 'put back together', or 'to make whole again'.

Navaro

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Quotes

"Gather in the shape of the Cosmos"  ~ Mythologian, Joseph Campbell

"As fire burns wood, so nada [cosmic music] consumes the restlessness of the mind, leaving no ash, no residue, but only limitless blue sky"   ~ Sri Brahmananda Sarasvati

"Rhythm is an ancient wisdom that unites us with the essence of our life."
~ From "The Forgotten Power of Rhythm",  Reinhard Flatschler, Austrian Ethnomusicologist and founder of
the Ta Ke Ti Na method. 

"Participating in a drum circle or even being near one is a healing experience for the hearts, minds, and bodies of many people.  A drum circle creates a subsonic vibration that gives a rhythmic massage to everyone near it, affecting each person uniquely.  This massage influences the harmonious alignment of our physical cells, emotional states, and our spirits."
~ From "Guide to Endrummingment",  Arthur Hull, North American 'Father' of the Drum Circle movement

~The Law of Entrainment:  In 1665, Dutch scientist Christian Huygens noticed that if 2 clocks were placed next to each other, within a very short time they would lock up and tick in perfect synchronicity.  Nature is efficient.  It takes less energy to pulse together than in opposition. 

~ " One way to think about the connection between those universal and planetary rhythms and the personal rhythms of our own bodies is that we are entrained with these larger patterns, we are pulsing in synch with them because nature is efficient and we are intrinsically a part of nature.."                                            
~ From Drumming at the Edge of Magic, by Mickey Hart, kit drummer for The Grateful Dead

I would add that we are 'nature'...not separate from.... ~ Navaro
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How I discovered the Drum  .......or how it discovered me.

Years ago in my hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1981 or so, I was walking through Jericho park with my sister, and heard a distant tattoo - a beat.  I had never heard anything like this before.  I didn't know what it was, but I only knew it caused a feeling of excited urgency in me.  My senses were heightened. I didn't know what it was, but I immediately hurried my step and my sister towards the sound.  I knew something landmark - important was happening. 

We walked quickly on earthen paths winding through trees and bushes, in this beautiful park by the sea.  The sound became closer, louder.  My heart beating fast, suddenly we emerged from the bushes and trees into a scene of a small group of men seated in a circle playing wooden, skinned drums, led by a tall African man in colorful hat and garb.  Women in flowing clothes were dancing around the circle freely, as the group beat out compelling rhythms that had me instantly transfixed.  The man smiled at me, and my sister and I stood and watched, swaying to the beat. 

Afterwards I spoke to the man and learned his name was Dido, and that he was the first African drum teacher in town, fresh from Los Angeles, California, via Montreal.  Everyone was very friendly and relaxed.  I hadn't been around people like this before, and I knew that I had found something important.  After that, every Sunday was spent either at the beach in Jericho Park, or close by on 4th Avenue at the Soft Rock Cafe, where Dido would lead his drum circles, teaching rhythms, and just as often, letting people jam freely while he socialized and flowed in and out of the circle.  There were colorful Sanyasins (devotees of Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh) always dancing and hanging about, and the 'scene' was artsy in a down to earth way,  relaxed and definitely non-mainstream.  I loved it. 

I met some of the leading musicians in town, who would come around the circles to visit Dido and sometimes sit in and power out on the drums, impressing all of us students. I had my first exposure to the powerful energy of the drum circle.  When it was 'on', everyone was uplifted and charged with energy, connected to each other, and to something magical and greater than us, that we all grew absolutely addicted to!  When it was lagging and bad musically, I noticed it would drain and tire me.

Years and a meandering creative path later, I found myself in the country, living in a small community.  I was a new mother.  I had no plans in my life other than to raise my daughter for a few years till she was 5 or so, and then continue on my path of studying energy healing, and become a health practitioner.  But before I knew it, I was out at parties in the small community, which was rich with alternative lifestyled and open minded people, and they discovered I played the drum.  They begged me to teach them!  I said I didn't know how.  But they insisted!  So, thus began my drumming career. As an exchange based on love, with new friends that supported me and helped shape the expression of what I loved.  I discovered I could combine my love of music with my interest in energy work and healing.  My classes grew gradually until they were very large, and I shifted from doing it for fun to my work.  Soon I was getting invitations to go off island and teach in other small communities.

Eventually I moved off Hornby Island and closer to the larger center of Victoria, on Vancouver Island.  I quickly crossed paths with the local traditional music people.  These were Westerners like myself who were passionate about learning tribal music and traditions.  We recognized each other right away.  Before I knew it, I was deeply immersed in a very whole setting, with a small community of people playing Zimbabwean music, also being one of the hottest bands in town.  We studied, rehearsed, performed and toured together, becoming like a family, complete with an extended family of fans throughout Western Canada and the U.S.

This was the foundation of my music 'career', which remained country based on Vancouver Island, in various communities, for many years.  My roots in tribal music were in community, on the land.  No matter where I am, the music continues to be this way for me - Earth based and community connected. Drumming comes from this, and if played with honor to its roots, naturally recreates the energy of its natural setting around itself.

30 years after hearing my first drumbeat through the park, here I am.

Navaro
Jan 15, 2012
East Vancouver, BC

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