EUGENE–See it! Sing It! Shake it! Make noise, sing songs, shake your feet, bang the drum, make masks modeled on the dramatic colors, shapes and textures of traditional Yoruba design from West Africa. And do it all under the leadership of University of Oregon students who are convinced that cultural anthropology can be fun.

From 2—4 p.m. on three consecutive Sundays–April 11, 18 and 25–six cultural anthropology majors at the University of Oregon will share their knowledge of other cultures and their enthusiasm for West African music, dance and maskmaking with children and families at the UO Museum of Natural History, 1680 E. 15th Ave.

Cost is $2 per person, $5 for families or $10 for groups of 10 or more. UO students and museum members are admitted free.

The three Family Sunday programs are part of the museum’s current featured exhibit, "Masks, Music and Motion: Community Healing Among the Yoruba of West Africa." The exhibit runs through June 20.

On April 25, Jenna Kalli, a senior from Toms River, N.J., will lead Motion! Sunday. Seniors Ellen Klemmer from San Francisco, Calif., and Cheryl Lewman from Eugene will assist.

"I can’t wait to see the little kids dance!" Kalli says. "I love music and I’m fascinated by dance and its cultural significance. I don’t see how you can’t have fun!"

Motion! Sunday will feature dances from West Africa as well as Haitian dances inspired by the African diaspora. A local marimba band will join student dancers and drummers from the UO Department of Dance.

Barb Shirk, who studied dancing in Nigeria, will teach traditional dances of the Yoruba based on tasks of everyday life. Now a fifth-grade teacher at Patterson Family School in Eugene, Shirk also designed the curriculum packet on the Yoruba exhibit for area teachers and their students.

On April 18, seniors Jason Arnesen of Eugene and Matt Bagen of Athens, Ga., will lead Music! Sunday with storytelling, drum making, drumming and African counting games. They will tell stories from two books, the Yoruba Trickster Tales by Oyekan Owomoyela and African Folktales, retold by Roger D. Abrahams.

Don Addison, an expert in Nigerian urban and rural music, will play the dundun, the Yoruba pressure drum.

Arnesen was an archaeology intern with the U.S. Forest Service and is working on a UO folklore certificate as well as his anthropology degree.

"We’d like to invite kids and families to learn the language of the dundun, the Yoruba pressure drum, and to see how the Yoruba express their culture through music," said Bagen, whose special interests include cultural anthropology and evolutionary psychology.

On April 11, Sarah J. Beecroft of Albany will lead Masks! Sunday. Beecroft is a recent UO graduate who attended the Oregon State University archaeology field school. She is interested in laboratory and field preservation techniques.

Beecroft will help participants make masks, house posts and dance costumes modeled on the dramatic colors, shapes and textures of traditional Yoruba design.

For information, visit the UO Museum of Natural History’s web site at http://natural-history.uoregon.edu or call (541) 346-3024.

Information about museum programs and exhibits also is available 24 hours a day by calling Guardline from a Touch-Tone phone, 485-2000, and selecting category 3447.

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