*Cultivating healthy artists, strong communities, and ecosystems.
*Innovating vibrant cultural education programs between the U.S. and Guinea.
*Nurturing lasting, heart-connected relationships through dance, music, and language.
Lanyi Fan is a group of Guinea enthusiasts with a wide variety of professional skills. We include people from Guinea and the U.S. We are unpaid volunteers who donate our time, ideas, hearts, and/or money to short and/or long-term projects. Our long-term commitment enables a well thought-out gradual change that benefits individuals and communities in the U.S. and Guinea. We have nine board members.
Growing up in the back streets in Conakry, Guinea, Kerfala Bangoura grew up diligently apprenticing under local artists in ceremonies, celebrations, and ballets when he wasn’t in school in the morning. It is rare that an artist is able to balance academic studies in Guinea as well as a professional focus; early in life people tend to favor stabilizing their income, therefore they invest more in a profession instead of attending school. His hard work paid off when he started rehearsing with two of the leading national ballets in Guinea. First, he participated in Percussions de Guinée for seven years studying under his main teachers: Lamine “Lopez” Soumah, Koumbana Conde, Bolokada Conde, and Ali Sylla. During this time he met one of his first students, Deidre Schuetz.
Deidre first became enthralled with West Africa's powerful dance and music in 1998 while witnessing and later participating in a class in the U.S. Riveted, she planned her first trip to Senegal, West Africa in 1999. To broaden her knowledge she first visited Guinea in 2002. She was touched by the profound wisdom and vitality backing her interest and since then has spent over three years total in West Africa. During her time there, she immersed herself in both classes geared toward foreigners and in training, rehearsals, and performances with Guineans. Fana was her drum teacher via private classes and apprenticeship. He proved be her most dependable support over time. Shadowing Fana helped her understand and experience life as an artist in Guinea. He continues to facilitate her intention to find ways to facilitate daily life for artists since they are the holders and transmitters of oral culture and history in their society. She has found the most effective way do this, continues to be to listen to Guineans' visions about what they want and then fulfill these aspirations in the most sustainable ways possible, day by day.
Fana and Deidre's initial dialogs and planning have drawn increasing participation from Guineans and foreigners to keep on shaping Lanyi Fan projects, which have become more formalized over time. As they continue to facilitate trips for foreigners to Guinea since 2002, other mesmerized visitors have been motivated to alleviate Guinean artist stresses while finding what they had envisioned from their quest in Guinea. People-to-people exchanges have naturally created Lanyi Fan projects. Lanyi Fan was formalized in April 2007 in order to continue the already numerous efforts to collaborate. Currently Deidre is developing the basic structures of Lanyi Fan from it’s home base in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., while Fana recently just changed taking part in Percussions de Guinée, his first Guinean national ballet, to his second, Ballets Africaines. He is now lead djembe soloist for Ballets Africaines.
Find out more about Lanyi Fan by reading about our board members. [link]