The Forbidden Drum

“The Forbidden Drum” Residency
October 21–24, 2026

Join Gettysburg College this October for a four-day exploration of “The Forbidden Drum,” a residency examining the persistence, survival, and global impact of West African rhythm. Bringing together a master West African drummer and his American student, the residency features interactive workshops, a live collaborative performance, and an open community drum circle on the following days.

Across the plantation Americas, colonial authorities outlawed the drum by statute and made it illegal for enslaved people to use drums, because the instrument carried messages, gathered people, and did much else besides. In a year when the nation marks 250 years, this program is not only about what they tried and failed to suppress, but about the richness of the tradition itself, played aloud in Gettysburg.

The teaching runs through it. Students in Introduction to Caribbean Studies are studying the drum’s suppression and survival across the Atlantic. Students in Communication and Culture are studying it as a sign system, where a rhythm is a message legible only to those who hold the code. This program takes both out of the classroom and puts the instruments in their hands, alongside practitioners from the tradition the drums come from.

It also does something to the campus and community divide. The opening performance is downtown on Lincoln Square. The festival sits at the edge of campus where campus and community meet, with local food vendors, an after-school group bringing children, and community drummers playing beside the visiting artists. For four days the College’s collection of West African drums is open to the whole county, and the practitioners who know these instruments are here with us.

Wednesday, October 21, 7:00 to 7:30 PM, Oasis Stage, Lincoln Square
Thursday, October 22, 6:30 to 7:30 PM, performance, CUB Ballroom
Friday, October 23, 4:30 to 7:00 PM, drum festival, 102 W Water Street
Saturday, October 24, 10:00 to 11:00 AM, Wellness Garden, 230 W Broadway

October 21 at 7p, Victor Nani Agbeli, a Ghanaian master drummer and dancer who teaches at Pomona College and the Lawrence Conservatory, performs with Logan Amaral of the Kekeli Drum & Dance Ensemble, giving guests a taste of what is coming to Gettysburg College campus. 

October 22 at Gettysburg College Union Buiding Ballroom, the event showcases a staged suite of West African drumming, dance, and song, performed on Gettysburg College’s own collection of West African drums.

October 23 on Water Street, experience an open-air drum festival on the edge of downtown Gettysburg. Victor Nani Agbeli leads an afternoon of drumming, dancing, and singing with Logan Amaral of the Kekeli Drum & Dance Ensemble, dancer and choreographer Benedicta Sowah, local drum circle facilitator Michael Smith, and Partners for African Development, a West African cultural troupe from Maryland.

October  24 at 10am, guests are invited to a morning movement workout set to live West African drumming.

All students, faculty, and community members are invited to explore the powerful, unbroken rhythm that connects African and American cultures.