With a twist of fate and an insatiable craving to learn, one professor in the music department discovered a lifelong passion and a second home.
James Burns, who specializes in ethnomusicology, the study of music and world cultures, has worked at Binghamton University for seven years.
While he devotes time to teaching inside the classroom, his greatest lessons are taught outside of it.
In his second year at BU, he started a student ensemble of 40 to 50 singers, drummers and dancers called NukPorfe. The name is in Ewe, a language from Ghana, and translates to “seeing is believing.”
“When you meet someone you’ll never know what their skills and talents are until you actually see them in action,” Burns said. “If you just saw us on the street with our instruments, you may question if we know anything, but you realize it’s true when we perform.”
Burns, raised as a Latino Jew, speaks Spanish, Mandarin and a half-dozen African languages. His mother is Hispanic, so he learned Spanish growing up and mastered Mandarin in college, where he took years of courses in Chinese and lived in Bejing for a summer abroad.
Though he initially planned to return to China after college, a sudden interest in Africa changed his plans.
“I had done Asian studies for many years and had reached the breaking point,” Burns said. “I had a lot of African friends at that point and wanted to see where they came from.”
He decided to go to Ghana, without knowing much about it. In an age before the Internet, he gleaned what he could from an encyclopedia.
But Burns didn’t need much time to adjust.
“The people were so beautiful and friendly,” he said. “I probably made more friends there in a week than I had my whole life.”
With those friends, he also made music. He started his two-year stay at the University of Ghana and then traveled to villages. For a good portion of his time in Ghana, he stayed with “drumming families.”
“These are families that have music all the way back through their history, they’re known as community musicians,” Burns said.
Burns moved in with one family and became their long-term apprentice. Starting with smaller drums, he worked up to the lead drum and before long, was leading the ceremonies.
“That gave me a sense of, and taught me about the cultural side of music,” he said. “I wasn’t just studying music at the school but really being involved in the life of the community.”
It’s this sense of community that he brings to NukPorfe at every rehearsal.
He is “moved by the music,” according to Marcel March, an adjunct instructor in the theater department who teaches African dance and is one of Burns’ former students.
“Through any form of music: jazz, modern, African, he feels the rhythm,” March said. “Whether he wants to get up and dance or he’s banging on a drum or playing on a piano, he’s someone who’s not afraid to be himself around other people.”
While working toward his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, he returned to Ghana and conducted research on a group of performers that was primarily female. He interviewed them about their lives and the meanings of songs and dances.
“They were expressing social criticism and commentary in their music that had to do with issues affecting women in the village,” he said. “Most are illiterate, so by dancing symbolically they have a voice in what the community knows or learns.”
Burns turned this research into a book called “Female Voices from an Ewe Dance-Drumming Community in Ghana.” He also created a documentary about the group.
When he returned from Africa, he brought back more than knowledge. Burns brought back a new way of life.
“[In Ghana] they have a culture of hospitality. It’s an honor to receive a guest,” he said.
Burns tries to make his own guests feel the same way.
“He’ll invite us to dinner and you feel like you’re a part of something,” March said.
Patient and fun, Burns devotes extra time to making sure his students are cared for as well.
Maritza Rodriguez, a junior majoring in biology, has been a member of the ensemble since her freshman year and describes Burns as someone who will always go out of his way to help.
“He has a lot of faith in his students, and I know I can’t let him down,” she said. “I go to practice rooms and go through it over and over again. I want to prove to him that I can do it.”
She started dancing in the back during rehearsal on Friday afternoons, but leapt through many parts and is now one of the lead drummers.
The group has in a way, developed into its own Ghanaian community.
“We’re a big family and we watch out for each other and care for each other,” Rodriguez said. “We have each other’s back, it’s really cool.”
NukPorfe is performing this Thursday at 8 p.m. in the Anderson Center’s Chamber Hall. Tickets are $3.