What’s Shaking? Music & Dance Workshop
Join us Saturdays, March 30 and April 20, 11 a.m.-noon! $8.
The What’s Shaking? Music and Dance Workshop is a live, interactive 60-minute immersive class for young people (ages 0-7) and their adults. Shows include Mr. Ryan’s original poems, songs, and a few classic covers. Shakers, children’s instruments and scarves are shared for a “drum jam,” call-and-response games, dance breaks and more!
Stay for Culture Keeper Adama Dembele’s Yala Cultural Tour from noon-2 p.m.
ABOUT THE BAND: What’s Shaking? Music is a multi-generational collective. Local musician and educator Ryan Glass, known as “Mr. Ryan” to Buncombe County littles, is creator of What’s Shaking?, a pre-school music and rhythm curriculum. He had been teaching this curriculum in Buncombe Co. preschools since 2013, but during the pandemic, he decided that What’s Shaking? needed to be more than a class. As things opened up in 2021, he got his friends together and they began offering free, monthly music and dance parties for kids at Sweeten Creek Brewery throughout the warm season.
Mr. Ryan plays the keys and sings, and his friends include Elaine Scott on vocals and percussion; Jeff Jeffries on live drums; Alli Marshall on vocals, percussion, and puppets; and Will Wittmeier on electric guitar.
“My approach, both in my classes and in the shows, is an experience that moves quickly through several aspects of the rhythmic arts in a fun, interactive way,” Ryan says. “My goal is to make children a part of the music, in whatever way they choose, as quickly as possible. I start with call and response, to connect and activate the ears and voice, and then I put shakers, sticks, and drums in their hands, so that they know that music is not just something I do for them, but something we do together.”
