On March 5, 2016,The Oral History of Female Drummers, was presented in front of a crowd larger than 10,000 people as part of Brooklyn Museum's Target First Saturday: She Knows No Bounds. The performance spanned over 3 hours and included 20 female and female identified drummers from all over the United States. The performance included a short panel discussion and Q&A with the drummers and the artist. 

Featuring beatboxer Ashley Saywut Moyer and drummers Kiran Gandhi, Maia Mac, Chloe Saavedra, Zaneta Sykes, Caryn Havlik, Rosana Cabán, Rebecca DeRosa, Mindy Abovitz, Jade Thacker, Zuzi Anablogue, AJ Drumz, Lisa Schonberg, Sean Leah Bowden, Twink, Hanna Fox, Roshni Thompson and more. 

The heads (skins) of each of the drum kits as well as each set of performer’s drum sticks, were generously provided to the drummers by Promark andEvans Drumheads. Each drummer’s snare head and sticks were hand painted by the artist Itta.

6-7 pm: Performance
7:15 - 7:45 Talkback with drummers
8-9 pm: Performance

See Smithsonian Magazine's review of our past performance of this piece at MoMA PS1 here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-museum-exhibit-shows-how-awesome-overlooked-female-drummers-actually-are-180947805/?no-ist

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Tom Tom Magazine's Oral History of Female Drummers is back, this time for a performance on Featuring beatboxer Ashley Saywut Moyer and drummers Kiran Gandhi, Maia Mac, Zaneta Sykes, Caryn Havlik, Jade Thacker, Chloe Saavedra, and more, the Oral History of Female Drummers is a call and response re-interpretation of women on the drum kit.

The Oral History of Female Drummers was successfully performed at NYC's MoMA PS1 in January 2013. A similar piece entitled First Beat was successfully performed at Miami's Perez Art Museum Miami in December 2013.
 

Tom Tom Magazine was invited by MoMA PS1 and Artbook to perform the Oral History of Female Drummers presented by Mindy Abovitz. A live drum performance spread throughout MoMA PS1’s floors engaging in a call and response with one another. The beats were passed along from drummer to drummer via a beatboxer, Ashley “Say Wut?!” Moyer, who visited each woman and re-interpreted her respective beat. The performers play on painted drum heads with sticks by the artist Itta. With each strike on the drum head they are chipped away at their own histories.

Performers include Tom Tom Magazine founder/editor Mindy Abovitz, and musicians Kristin Mueller (of The Caulfield Sisters, Lucinda Black Bear, Christy & Emily) and Sean Desiree (of Bell’s Roar), Chloe Saavedra (Chaos Chaos, Smoosh), and award winning beatboxer Ashley “Say Wut?!” Moyer.

Drummers and Locations:

The Pit: Mindy Abovitz

Boiler Room: Kate Ryan

Lobby: Kristin Mueller

Stairway E: Chloe Saavedra

Stairway B: Linnea Lamon

Stairway B: Sean Desiree

Conference Room across from the Turrell Room: Kiran Gandhi

Beatboxer Ashely “Say Wut?!” Moyer: traveled throughout the piece

First Beat was performed at the opening week of the Perez Art Museum Miami in December of 2013, one week before Art Basel Miami. Mindy filled the museum with drummers representative of the diverse cultures in Miami and there was a four part performance which included a call and response and a re-writing of a gender specific piece of drum music. The original piece of music written for this museum was gifted to the museum. 

The Oral History of Female Drummers: Getting Louder was performed at Mana Contemporary on September 25, 2016. This immersive sound installation consists of 10 female identifying drummers set up in different locations throughout the building, both hidden (stairwell, elevator, distant corridor) and visibly featured (cafe, outside on the grass, end of main hallways). This performance is designed to explore the undocumented history of female drummers. Drummers perform simultaneously throughout Mana out of sight and sound range of each other. The duration of the performances will begin short (4 minutes) and grow longer in duration and louder in volume throughout the day to reflect the growth of visibility and presence of female drummers.

This performance seeks to inspire and challenge the viewer through their engagement with the drummers. Women and girls are traditionally seen and not heard and in this performance they are both seen and heard. By placing the drummers in the meditative environment of our cultural museums the viewer is also confronted with the stand alone existence of a female in her traditional role as the subject of a art piece. When activated, the drummer becomes an aural experience that the viewer must reckon with that is new and unchartered terrain. Viewers are encouraged to observe this intimate expression undistracted and to participate in both the immediacy, skill and mystery of this exchange. The beats represent a lost conversation of a history previously told exclusively by word of mouth. The performers will play on painted drum heads and painted sticks by the artist Itta. Throughout the performance the drummers will be chipping away at their own histories and the histories of the generations that came before them.

Performers include: Kiran Gandhi, Chloe Saavedra, Sean Desiree, Aiko Masubuchi, LaTreice V Branson and Pippa Kelmenson.

Tom Tom Magazine and Ace Hotel New York present: Roto Hotel

19 female drummers playing simultaneously for 44 minutes in the lobby of The Ace Hotel. An exploratory drumming performance curated by Tom Tom Magazine and performed by drummers:

Venzella Joy (Beyoncé)
Emily Wells (Emily Wells)
Maia Macdonald (Mirah), 
Gabriela Jimeno (Balancer) 
Emi Kariya (Bevy)
Chris Bouza
Shayna Dunkelman
Mariana Ramirez
Suzi Analogue
Jordyn Blakely
Cati Bestard
Sean Desiree (bell's roar)
Colleen Clark
Eva Kaufman
Kat Casale
Mickey Vershbow
Chihiro Shibayama
Sarah Strauss
Mindy Abovitz
Rosana Cabán

After party by Tom Tom DJs:
DJ MURSI LAYNE & Stas THEE Boss

Tuesday, October 21 2014
8:00pm
The Lobby at Ace Hotel New York
Free + Open to the public
@acehotel