DANCE : HEAD Beat of a Culture : Members of Valley-based troupe use the traditional art and expression of West Africa to teach about their homeland.

The drum speaks: a thundering command, a gentle suggestion, issued from the mouth of Atsimevu .

The women answer: arms outstretched high to the heavens, backs bent low to the earth, they dance together to the voice of the drum.

Turn, twist, jump, sway, whirl; all when Atsimevu commands.

This dialogue between drum and body continues--sound and motion, bodies and rhythm blending into one pulsating band of energy.

Atsimevu is joined by the voices of others: The chatter of Axatse the gourd rattle, the persistent ring of Gankogui , the bell, the chant of supporting drums, Kidi a nd Sogo . They all speak at once, sometimes clashing, other times joining together.

But it is Atsimevu who directs the action.

“Everything you do is in response to what the Atsimevu tells you,” master drummer Kobla Ladzekpo says. “The dancers talk back and forth with the drum . . . That’s the thing about African dance. You have to understand the language of the drum.”

This is the Zadonu African Music and Dance Company, a Valley-based troupe that is committed to preserving, promoting and performing the traditional music and dance of West Africa. Since 1990 the group has been introducing the culture of Africa to audiences throughout the city in concerts and workshops; audiences that, according to the company, often know very little about the continent and its people.

“The importance of teaching the dance is to educate people about our culture,” said Ladzekpo, the artistic director and founder of Zadonu who came to Los Angeles in 1970.

“There are a lot of people who are totally ignorant of African culture. The only thing they know is Tarzan movies.”

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Funded by a grant from the California Arts Council in Sacramento, and a Recovery Grant awarded by the city of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department after last spring’s unrest, the dance group conducts workshops Saturdays at Pacoima Recreation Center and Thursdays at the Pacoima Community Youth Culture Center. The free workshops are designed to instruct even novice participants in the arts of West African dance and music.

For the past three years the group has also staged “The Afrikans Are Coming,” believed to be the largest African dance festival held during Black History Month in Southern California. The annual event brings together as many as six African dance groups from throughout California and attracts audiences of hundreds.

But the group’s efforts to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of African music and dance extend far beyond Los Angeles.

Ladzekpo, a professor of ethnomusicology at CalArts and UCLA, belongs to a dynasty of dancers and musicians rooted in Ghana, West Africa, with tentacles that extend from Southern California to the Bay Area to the East Coast.

“This is what we do,” said C.K. Ladzekpo, the brother of Kobla and a teacher of African music at UC Berkeley.

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“Traditionally the Ladzekpo family among the Anlo-Ewe people produced composers and master drummers. It is basically our traditional role .. . . What we have done is expanded our role to include new arenas, university classrooms and concert stages instead of the traditional responsibilities.”

In Northern California, C.K. Ladzekpo heads the African Music and Dance Ensemble, which has performed and taught the dances and music there since 1974 when he joined the dance faculty at UC Berkeley. His wife, Betty, is a principal dancer with the group.

In Los Angeles, Zadonu is a family affair. Kobla’s wife, Dzidzorgbe Lawluvi-Ladzekpo, is the group’s choreographer. Their daughters Yeko, 17, and Afi, 21, perform in the group, and nephew Agbi is the group’s musical director. Cousin Kobla Agbanyo and nephew Kofi Ladzekpo handle the business affairs of the group. Other relatives serve as musicians and group administrators.

Through the years African music and dance groups have developed a strong and educated following in the Bay Area. In the smaller communities of Oakland and Berkeley, the “Afrikans are Coming” is a much anticipated event.

“We found a way of reaching the African-American community with that event and making it a part of African-American community life in Oakland,” C.K. Ladzekpo said.

Through the efforts of Kobla Ladzekpo and other family members, the audience in Southern California is also beginning to grow.

“That’s the main reason we started this program in Southern California,” Kobla Ladzekpo said of the group, which was started in 1990. “We’re trying to bring it all together.”

What is coming together is the product of generations, passed down from father to son and from mother to daughter. It is the continuation of ancient traditions and the creation of new ones.

Even the name of the Valley-based group, Zadonu, reflects the family’s tradition as musicians and dancers. Zadonu combines the names of the family patriarch, Zate, and an older brother, Adonu. Both were master drummers, composers and dancers, Kobla Ladzekpo said.

The roots of the Ladzekpo family are grounded in Anyako, an island town located in the Voltaire region of Ghana, about 160 miles from Accra, the nation’s capital. There the brothers learned and lived the music they would eventually bring to the United States.

In Anyako, as in other traditional African societies, music and dance are not performed simply for social enjoyment or aesthetic appreciation, C.K. Ladzekpo said. It is at the essence of every aspect of a community and family’s life.

“From the naming ceremony of a child, to puberty, to marriage, and then death, music is always going to be the medium for creating whatever environment is necessary for that event,” he explained.

Music is also a way of retaining and perpetuating the values of a community. In these societies, musicians and composers, such as those in the Ladzekpo family, hold an esteemed position, similar to that of a community spokesperson.

“The composers and the master drummers become civil servants, spokespersons, and artists too,” C.K. Ladzekpo said.

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And where there is music, there is dance.

Dzidzorgbe Lawluvi-Ladzekpo, Kobla Ladzekpo’s wife, grew up in Anyako and begin dancing as a teen-ager. There were dances for funerals, dances for harvesting of crops, and dances for births and weddings.

To learn the dances one simply had to live it.

“Traditionally, you just watch others do it and you just imitate them,” Dzidzorgbe Lawluvi-Ladzekpo said. “And that’s how you learn to dance.”

By the time she was 19, her skillful dancing had earned her an invitation to attend the University of Ghana, where she earned a degree in dance. In the late 1960s she joined the National Dance Troupe of Ghana. The group performed at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, then embarked on a world tour that included performances for heads of states in places like Hungary, Paris, Czechoslovakia, and East and West Germany.

Kobla Ladzekpo came to the United States in 1964, at the invitation of a professor from Columbia University’s Music Department. The faculty member had visited the University of Ghana, where Kobla was teaching, and asked him to help form an ethnomusicology program at Columbia.

After teaching there for two years, Kobla Ladzekpo left and helped start a similar program at New Paltz State College in New York, and in 1970 he was invited to CalArts, where he became a full faculty member and helped shape the school’s World Music Program.

Eventually C.K. Ladzekpo and many other family members joined him in the United States. Members of the family frequently return to Ghana and Kobla Ladzekpo often takes groups of students with him to expose them to African music and dance in a traditional setting.

In the United States the family has continued in its role as preservers of their culture, only now the task is to present it to people who often know very little about Africa, largely because of a prevailing Eurocentrism in education, C.K. Ladzekpo said.

“If you take a look at it, the way our kids are being educated, the whole education process glorifies Western values at the expense of other values,” he said.

Some who attempt to learn African dance, particularly those who have been trained in Western music, make the mistake of “trying to count everything,” said Kobla Ladzekpo, who composed some of the music heard on the soundtrack for the movie “Mississippi Masala.” “It’s completely different . . . it’s not written down. It’s not notated.”

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In African music and dance, the action is directed by the lead drum. The patterns played on the drum determine how the dancers will move.

“It takes people a long time to understand the drum language,” he said.

The way Dzidzorgbe Lawluvi-Ladzekpo explains the art of West African dance to her students is simple: enjoy.

“I love to dance, and I love people to love it too,” she said. “When I’m teaching the first thing I say, no matter how bad the dance is or how good, you have to enjoy it first. If there is no enjoyment in it, you can’t give any to anybody.”

The brothers have produced recordings of African music and collectively they have been responsible for introducing a large body of people to the culture through their college courses, community events and workshops.

Jacqueline Cogdell Djedje, a professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA, where Kobla Ladzekpo teaches part-time, said Zadonu’s annual dance festival provides the different African dance groups in the Los Angeles area with a sense of community. The festival and Kobla Ladzekpo’s courses also open the world of traditional African culture to others who otherwise might not have an opportunity to learn about it.

“It’s not often that we have that type of exposure to music from Africa,” Djedje said. “The fact that he has this event during February, Black History Month, is very important for people of African ancestry and other groups too.”

John Price, a former student of Kobla Ladzekpo who now drums with the group, said he has seen a definite change in the way the music is perceived by audiences, particularly African-Americans.

“When I was growing up it wasn’t popular,” Price said after a workshop one recent Saturday. “There was just a few drummers who would play in the park. It wasn’t organized.”

But in recent years, African-Americans have begun to display an increased awareness and appreciation of their African roots, and the change can be seen in the greater numbers of people who patronize African cultural events, he said.

“It’s changed,” Price said. “It’s changed a lot.”

For Kobla and C.K. Ladzekpo, the change is a welcomed one.

C.K. Ladzekpo, who is writing a book on African music, believes that the music plays an intrinsic role, not only in perpetuation of the culture, but in the development of the community through the promotion of mental and spiritual health.

In his courses C.K. Ladzekpo attempts to explain music the way he learned it as a child: as a metaphor for life.

Complex cross-rhythms--the simultaneous use of contrasting rhythmic patterns in the same meter--are a defining characteristic of African music. Following the metaphor, the main beat--the beat assigned to a particular instrument--is the equivalent of a person’s purpose in life. The other beats, played by musicians on other instruments, are perceived obstacles.

Being able to maintain your main beat while hearing other instruments playing conflicting rhythms prepares the young musician and dancer for obstacles that will inevitably arise in life, C.K. Ladzekpo said.

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“By the time you grow up, in whatever purpose you have for yourself in life, you know things are not going to be so smooth,” he said. “There are moments when there are problems and you are going to have to learn how to deal with them without losing yourself.”

African music and dance “communicates all those values and teaches you,” he said.

Where and When

What: The Zadonu Music and Dance Company’s dance workshops.

Hours: 3-5 p.m. Saturdays at the Pacoima Recreation Center, 10943 Herrick Ave., and 4-5:30 p.m. Thursdays at the Pacoima Community Youth Culture Center, 11243 Glenoaks Blvd.

Price: Free.

Other: Zadonu will perform May 2 at “Music-and-Dance-

on-the-Grass,” an international music and dance festival, at Sunset Canyon Recreation Center on the UCLA campus.

Call: (818) 361-7075.