My Review Of The Visitor - A Movie With Drum Circles & Hand Drumming
(And photos of the drum circle held the opening night of the film in the lobby.)

So this movie came out, titled "The Visitor" with drum circles and hand drumming in it. We got permission to 
have a drum circle at the opening of the film in the theater lobby. (Check out the photos, video, and more below.)

I think "The Visitor" movie was a pretty good film. This was one of the most refreshing and likeable films that 
emerged from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It was a lot more than just a feel good film. It showed how drum 
circles can help to bring people from different cultures together. And how hand drumming is accessable to all 
people. It even showed how it can help you to be a better person. Anyway, here's my review of the movie from a 
drum circle lover's perspective, also my review of the drum circle just before the opening. It was a blast for 
us all to blow out the lobby of the theater with a kickin' drum circle, and then go in and all watch the film 
together. This movie was a lot more than just a bored professor who discovers the djembe and tries to get hip. 

Richard Jenkins the lead actor in the movie, was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 in the catagory, "Performance by 
an actor in a leading role". And rightfully so, he did a fine job. For those of you that were there with us that 
evening, I think he was very convincing in the role of a guy that discovers hand drumming for the first time. 
It was such an incredibly subtle work of art from Jenkins, and I thought it was a deeply vulnerable 
performance. The rest of the cast was excellent, and all of the characters were very likable.

I liked how the film showed the equality in a freestyle drum circle, (although I wish they'd shown a bit more of 
that NYC drum circle grooving on there!) It shined a positive light on open drum circles as well. And there was 
a pretty decent first lesson on how to play a djembe in another scene. Both of those are linked below. 

We have a pretty thriving drum circle community down here in Tampa Bay, and we were kind of itching for a movie 
that involved drum circles to come out. Finally it did. Something that would tell people a little of what hand 
drumming, and going to drum circles is like. How life changing just playing a drum can be for you. Whenever you 
have a serious problem, you can always turn to your drum. Because when you drum, all you think about is drumming. 
Drumming helps to heal your mind, body, and spirit. Having the belly dancers out there helps a little bit also.





Check out the official "The Visitor" movie website where you can view a short video and more. Or just do 
a search on The Visitor Film and it will come up. (I also put the links to videos below the photos.)

To me, the underlying theme of the movie was that hand drumming can help to make you a better person. Even if you 
have never touched a drum before, no matter how old you are, or where you are from, you can do something beautiful 
with your hands, and make music. The end of the film was kind of sad. He turned to his drum. I've done that. You might 
have also. Sometimes that's what we do. And I liked how the film showed how we bridge cultural differences naturally 
at a drum circle. I thought the film brought all of that to light, and overall that it was pretty good. It is well worth 
watching. We were all touched by it. It was a bit slowly paced but it kept me glued the to it the entire time. Part 
of the movie was about making friends out of strangers and caring about them even when they are in trouble.

I found the ending to be a bit disappointing, I won't give it away, but it could have ended so many different ways,  
I found it uplifting and joyful at times, but overall rather sad. If you have ever been unfortunate enough to be 
alone at some point in your life where you feel completely alone, this movie explains the situation better than 
I ever could. What is most amazing about this movie, is that it holds up without any sex or violence in it.

It did have a few scenes showing a beginner how to hold and play a djembe drum, and it gives a good quickie lesson 
on playing a djembe. You could see as he grew better as a person playing and learning about his drum. 
We all enjoyed the movie, especially coming right from a drum circle.

So Anyway, Imagine this...You've got this huge open lobby greeting area where you have the concessions at one far end, 
the entrance at the other. The carpet was that real thin dark red theater carpet. But it had this huge 25 foot around 
evergreen circle right in the middle of it, with a star shape in the middle. It was like a blueprint for a drum circle. 
Funny as heck. "The Drum circle goes here." That manager and I picked it right away at a meeting the day before. 
Actually, it picked itself out. We both just looked at it, looked at each other, and went uh huh, yep that's it.

They have these big ornate columns in there. And this gigantic brass chandelier, with a huge domed ceiling up above it. 
The green drum circle spot was just below that. The acoustics under it were bizarre. It amplified your playing or speaking 
if you stood there. I host from the edge of the circle mostly, but once I noticed the mystery spot, I asked people if they 
wanted to get in there and try it if they wanted to. And a lot of them did, the wood flute was like times 5 normal volume 
from the dome ceiling. Everone's look of astonishment who came out of there was the same. It was pretty freaky. 

We had 25 - 30 drum circle lovers show up right on time. Couldn't be better. Drums from all over the world. The make 
up was half men, half women, of mixed ages. We had 30 of these nicely padded chairs set out, (something we rarely get!)  

So here you have this big ol' silent movie theater lobby, a few people here and there chatting, and then all of a 
sudden, Whoosh! at 6:00 an instant drum circle appears. LoL. Too funny. 

We started out with the heartbeat with a hip hop flair to it, got the concessions guys dancing over there, and pretty much 
just jammed out and had a good time (within the managers constraints) on about 8 different rhythms for an hour and 10 minutes 
straight. Some African, some Latin, Some Mid East, a Little 6/8 Mother Rhythm, then the James Brown. It was a good time, 
with great drumming, dancing, then go watch a movie with drum circle in it. A pretty fun night. 

The beauty of it was the high level of musicality we achieved as a group. We had 3 professional belly dancers that showed up, 
even a great wood flute player. When you can connect the drumming to a dancers rhythm, and vise verse, the music is always at 
like performance level. They each took turns dancing, just tearing that evergreen spot up. All three of them. Add to that, 
some occasional hints of upper rhythm from a wood flute player. It adds the upper melody floating over the drumming. 

What I'm trying to say here is, that drumming just by itself, is fun. Drumming with a flute melody, is more fun. Add in some 
belly dancers, and the the perfect drum circle storm is born. The musicality is so high, because we all want to sound as good 
as we possibly can as a group. Because we as drummers know that the better we play...the better it sounds...the better it 
sounds, the better it feels! And that's what we did. We felt good.

This was one pretty funny moment. When all the people came out from the 5 0'clock showing of The Visitor, they they had no 
idea the would come out and run right smack into a live drum circle going on in the lobby. It freaked a lot of people out, 
because it was sounding so good, & with all the great dancing going on. We were just performing for ourselves, like we 
normally do at a drum circle. We're not really conscious of the bystanders, just focusing on having fun ourselves. After 
a half hour of playing, nobody wanted to stop long enough to take any photos when that surprised mob of theater goers 
came out. But there is a few photos below from the early part. I handed out some tambourines and maracas to the curious 
onlookers and they joined in with us. (The ones that have that "I've never seen anything like this before" look on their 
face) So we jammed and had a blast for an hour and 10 minutes straight. Then just as quickly as it appeared, we stashed 
all the drums, and chairs real fast, into a nearby storage area. We grabbed a few drinks and snacks, and bolted in to see 
the film with seconds to spare. The whole entire thing disappeared in like one minute. Whoosh again...everything was gone, 
chairs, drums, everything just vanished. It was like a scene out of a cartoon. There's a few more drum circle photos below.

That was kind of odd actually, now that I've had a chance to think about it. You go from jamming out at a drum circle, & a few 
minutes later, you are in a theater chair about to watch a movie that has drum circles in it. That doesn't happen very much. 
A drum circle, and then a movie. LoL. Go get the DVD, it's a good watch. (I've seen the DVD used for under $5 at Amazon.)

Shannon
drumcircles.net