Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble's mission is to strengthen families by developing and enhancing young people's self-esteem through the study and performance of traditional West Afrikan music and dance, and by building collaborative relationships that set and sustain the balance between youthful aspiration and family obligation.

TRJE’s Mission

Since the 90's, three local artists — Ketu Oladuwa, Lisa Tsetse and Akinlana DaDa — have worked together to fashion programs in rhythmic and movement studies for young people. In the fall of 1999 their decade-long body/mind and rhythmic studies with the Center for Nonviolence and Fort Wayne Dance Collective's CAP on Violence Project produced the Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble. TRJE is designed as a traditional Afrikan drum ensemble to develop family ties and community consciousness in children 7-17 years old.

  

Housed at the Dance Collective where Tsetse is co-founder, TRJE's life force drives collaborations that lend vitality to the ensemble's process of community development through the arts. That process has generated a comprehensive vision.


Begun with 13 students, TRJE has grown to 27 members this season.  It has a retention rate of 85%.  The ensemble has performed at venues throughout metropolitan Fort Wayne and in Indiana sites as distant as Marion, Richmond, South Bend and Merrillville, and as far away as the University of Vermont at Burlington.  Through our seventh season TRJE had performed to audiences in excess of 75,000.


During its fourth season, artistic director Oladuwa traveled to Conakry, Guinea, in West Afrika to continue his study of the culture and drumming with Famoudou Konaté, and to further develop that relationship. An initiated master traditionalist and the ensemble's principal cultural inspiration, Konaté visited Fort Wayne and taught the ensemble in 2000. In Guinea he leads an artist community of traditionalists.


In December of 2006, 10 students and 5 parents traveled to West Afrika. Learn more about this trip here.

Organization History

Coming soon: A TRJE Timeline!