Project Description - Parade of One Rwanda 15
In the spring of 1994, Rwanda was immersed in ethnic violence. In just a few months, nearly one million Rwandans were killed by other Rwandans, in a senseless genocidal spree. Now, as of 2009, Rwanda is in great shape. Despite the hardships of it's post-conflict situation, it is one of the safest countries in Africa, and there is visible progress in the fight against poverty there.
In the summer of 2009, New York City saxophonist Jeremy Danneman traveled to Rwanda to perform in a series of street performances to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and celebrate the growing peace and unity there. He improvised on the streets of Kigali, Butare, and Gisenyi and also collaborated with local musicians. He spoke and gave saxophone demonstrations at the Muhima Primary School and the Gisimba Orphanage, and collaborated with the Rwa Makondera children's dance group at the Ivuka Arts Center. Additionally, the Goethe Institute helped fund a documentary Danneman produced, in collaboration with Rwandan director Daddy Ruhorahoza. We are looking forward to the release of Rwanda 15, which will feature previously unseen footage of Danneman's street performances in Rwanda.
Please read about the day to day details of the parade in Danneman's blog. Danneman looks forward to continuing operations in Rwanda and expanding to other locations and different types of projects. If you would like to contribute to this project or become more involved, please contact Jeremy Danneman: jeremy@paradeofone.org
Mission Statement
Parade of One, Inc. is an organization that promotes socially aware musical performances, pursuing causes that include but are not limited to environmentalism and reaching audiences in post-conflict societies. In addition to social activism our performances emphasize a move away from the traditional, scripted role of the musician which is to record albums and give concerts, though we may also do that. Instead, we concentrate on creating new and previously unthinkable ways of deploying musical talent. For instance, plans to harvest woodwind energy from a saxophone to generate electricity are currently underway. Our groundbreaking project was the Rwanda 15 Parade of One, in which saxophonist Jeremy Danneman gave a series of street performances to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and celebrate the growing peace there. Current projects include continued operations in Rwanda, a possible expansion into other post-conflict zones, and harvesting electricity from saxophones. However, with our emphasis on pursuing the ideas that don't exist yet, it is impossible to predict the exact nature of future performances.
How do we do it? First, the founder of Parade of One, saxophonist Jeremy Danneman, keeps a list of the unlikely performance ideas that regularly occur to him. Then, we research their feasibility and cost, sometimes having others join the team. For instance, Danneman collaborated with a filmmaker while in Rwanda and is currently consulting with a postdoctoral fellow at a prestigious research institute to help him harvest electricity from saxophones. Finally, we solicit donations, mostly from private individuals, to pay for transportation, accommodations, supplies, and other costs that we incur. Parade of One, Inc. has no salaried employees and does not accept grant proposals.
Our operations thus far have benefited audiences who see music that
was previously inaccessible to them. In Rwanda for instance, homeless
orphans who hadn't seen a saxophone or heard jazz before, were able to
see such street performances when they never could have attended a
show in a traditional venue. Musicians also benefit by acquiring
funding for projects that do not generate profit. Meanwhile, audiences
here in the USA are educated about faraway cultures and conditions and
much more when they follow our projects in the Parade of One blog.
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Rwanda and the Rwandan Genocide
Rwanda is a landlocked country in East-central Africa. Because of its hilly terrain, it is also known as the "Land of a Thousand Hills." With over ten million inhabitants, it is the most densely populated country in Africa. Most of the people are subsistence farmers, and three quarters of them live on less than $1.25 a day. The capital is Kigali, and the people of Rwanda speak one language, called Kinyarwanda.
In the late 1800s, Germany began the process of colonizing Rwanda, but Belgium took over during World War I. Both colonizing forces exploited the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic distinctions to weaken the indigenous people and assert their own power. Tutsis were made into the governing class, while Hutus were subservient. The Roman Catholic Church, also complicit in the ethnic divisions, ran the educational system, and created two different programs, one for Tutsis and one for Hutus.
On July 1, 1962 Belgium granted full independence to Rwanda. Though the colonizers left, the ethnic divisions they exploited continued to simmer. The backlash against the ethnic hierarchy would continue for decades, and the effects are still felt today.
In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF,) a rebel army composed mostly of Tutsi refugees and Hutu political dissidents began it's invasion of Rwanda from neighboring Uganda. This marked the beginning of the Rwandan Civil War, with France backing the Hutu dominated Rwandan government and the USA backing the RPF.
On April 6, 1994, an airplane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down in Kigali. To this day, blame is still being passed around about who was responsible for the attack. What is certain is that the assassination of Habyarimana, who'd been president of Rwanda from 1973 to his death in 1994, was a major event leading up to the genocide in which nearly a million Rwandans were killed. The murders were carried out mostly by regular people with machetes, without regard for whether the victim was a combatant, man, woman, or child. Rwandan radio stations announced where victims were hiding and encouraged militias to attack. In addition to murders, there were hundreds of thousands of rapes, exacerbating an already dire HIV epidemic.
Finally in July 1994, the RPF led by now President Paul Kagame won the Rwandan civil war. Since then, many of the people responsible for war crimes have been imprisoned, but many more live free, even in the same neighborhoods as the relatives of those they killed. Rwandans are just trying to get along with one other another the best they can and not focus on past ethnic divisions. In fact, now they try to use words like Hutu and Tutsi as little as possible. They also have severe poverty and an AIDS epidemic to conquer. Rwandans have been remarkably successful in maintaining an ever-growing, but still fragile peace.
Currently, tourism is the fastest growing sector of the Rwandan economy. Gorillas and other primates are the main attraction, highlighting the natural beauty of the country. Many visitors, though, are not as interested as they could be in what might be learned from Rwanda's recent history.
If anyone needs a fun parade right now, it's probably Rwandans!
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Jeremy Danneman
Jeremy Danneman was born in Newark, Delaware, where he began playing music at a young age, first starting on piano then moving on to what are now his main instruments, saxophone and clarinet. His talents were recognized early on, and he was selected for Delaware All-State Band and the Governor's School for Excellence in Music.
In 1998, he relocated to New York City to become a professional musician, along the way picking up a Bachelor's degree in British and American Literature from New York University. Jeremy has pursued numerous goals in his career, placing his talents in a wide array of contexts, including jazz, reggae, free improv, latin, musical theater and much more. He has performed at fine New York venues such as the Blue Note, Theater for the New City, Zebulon, and the Shrine, plus worldwide in Tokyo, Berlin, Rwanda, and the Dominican Republic.
In 2009, Jeremy founded Parade of One, Inc. an organization dedicated to removing the musician from the traditional, scripted role of recording albums and giving concerts, instead finding new ways to deploy musical talent. The groundbreaking project was the Rwanda 15 Parade of One, in which Jeremy gave a series of street performances in Rwanda to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and celebrate the growing peace there. For his music in Rwanda, Jeremy was hailed as "a man on a personal mission" by the Rwandan New Times, and the Forward declared that the "enthusiasm and freshness of a radically new creation are notoriously contagious." While in Africa, Jeremy also collaborated with local musicians and volunteered his talents at the Muhima Primary School and the Gisimba Orphange. A documentary film about and produced by Danneman, entitled Rwanda 15, is soon to be be released.
Danneman has contributed to recordings with bands such as, Mysterium, Ulysses, and Love Camp Seven, and he currently works with avant jazz-rock group Mysterium, the Spanish reggae group El Pueblo, and the modern chamber group Ryan Tully and the Dannemans.
Danneman actively volunteers for the Artist Access program at Woodhull Hospital, the Business Council for Peace, and Alliance Guinea. He is also gratefully indebted to many teachers, including most recently the renowned clarinetist David Krakauer.
Board of Directors, Parade of One, Inc.
George Danneman
www.dannemanfirm.com
www.delawareaffordablehousing.wordpress.com
George J. Danneman focuses his practice in the areas of commercial real estate, municipal finance, affordable housing and community development. George has extensive experience negotiating leases and construction contracts for landlords and tenants in both industrial and retail space. In addition to representing sophisticated real estate developers in Delaware, George represented the Delaware State Housing Authority and closed almost every affordable housing transaction for the Delaware State Housing Authority over the past six plus years. George has volunteered for the Delaware State Bar Association, the Delaware Office of Child Advocate, the New Castle County Financial Advisory Council, and several other organizations.D
Delilah Rothenberg
www.devcapstrategies.com
Delilah Rothenberg is the Founding Principal of Development Capital Strategies, LLC (DCS). Previously, she worked with Bear, Stearns & Co in Institutional Equities. Prior to Bear, Delilah developed educational programs with industry executives for investors at Gerson Lehrman Group. She also has experience with emerging markets private equity, having worked with Zephyr Management. Delilah serves on the Business Council for Peace Executive Council and Board, is the founder of their Young Professionals Committee, and was on their founding mission to Rwanda. She is an active member of Angel Africa, 85 Broads, and Seeds of Peace. Delilah has a B.A. in History, Politics, and Africa Studies from NYU, where she received the Dean’s Award in Politics, served as Co-President of Pi Sigma Alpha, and studied Swahili. She holds the Series 7 and Series 63 licenses. Delilah’s work has been featured in the New York Times, on CNN, NPR, among others.
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